Dealey Plaza has changed some since Nov. 22, 1963. The Texas School Book Depository is now the Dallas County Administration Building. The Hertz sign is gone from the roof. There is no freeway sign to block your view of Elm Street if you wish to take pictures from near the grassy knoll. The last legs of the fateful motorcade route can no longer be followed because of a one-way street.
But for people old enough to remember when President Kennedy was assassinated, and even for some people who aren't, these changes do not detract from the emotion and curiosity of visiting the plaza.The emotions should be even stronger Nov. 22, when Dealey Plaza is formally recognized as a National Historic Landmark.
Each year, thousands of visitors stroll through the plaza on Dallas' West side. Gary Woolhouse, a Dallas resident who sells his conspiracy-oriented newsletter and video on the grassy knoll, said 200-500 people visit during the week, and as many as 2,000 visitors arrive on weekends. Woolhouse, 40, said age plays a significant role in the experience of each visitor.
"The older crowd, 50 and over, tends to be nostalgic," he said. "People in their 20s or teens ... it's a fad."
If simply gazing up toward the sixth-floor window of the depository or walking up the grassy knoll to peer over the picket fence aren't enough stimulus to get a feel for the tragedy that occurred in Dealey Plaza, there are two exhibits and a bus tour designed to capture the spirit of that weekend three decades ago.
The more well-known of the two exhibits is The Sixth Floor, a museum located, appropriately enough, in the sixth floor of the depository. The exhibit, operated by the Dallas County Historical Foundation, opened in 1989. More than 1.5 million people have passed through its doors, said Bob Porter, the museum's director of public programs.
Photo displays and video monitors highlight Kennedy's presidency, his trip to Texas, the motorcade, and the assassination and its aftermath. Two brief movies document the worldwide reaction to Kennedy's death and examine his legacy.
"It's an emotional experience for almost anyone that goes through," Porter said of the exhibit.
But invariably, people are drawn to the row of windows on the south side that look out into Dealey Plaza.
The corner window, from which Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired the shots that killed Kennedy and wounded Texas Gov. John Connally, is arranged to look the way it did on the afternoon of Nov. 22, 1963, complete with replica cardboard boxes set up in the pattern of the famed "sniper's nest." A glace partition prevents visitors from touching the window.
Although the Sixth Floor offers the opportunity to put one's mind at rest about the assassination, the other major exhibit in Dallas seeks to keep the questions about what happened on Nov. 22, 1963, very much alive.
The JFK Assassination Information Center at 110 South Market St., about two blocks southeast from the assassination site, focuses on the conspiracy angle of the assassination.
The center was founded by Larry Howard, who is also its president and director.
Howard, who served as one of Stone's technical advisers for "JFK," comes down heavily on the conspiracy side of the assassination controversy. He says the center will eventually contain arguably the world's largest bookstore pertaining to the assassination, as well as several exhibits and a 30-seat movie theater.
The center offers a bus tour that takes passengers to all the major sites related to the assassination weekend in 1963. The tour leaves from the center, goes down Elm Street and out to the Trade Mart, where Kennedy was to have made a luncheon speech. The bus then heads to Parkland Hospital and then back to Dealey Plaza for a 20-minute tour.
From there, the tour goes to the Oak Cliff section of Dallas for a look at Oswald's rooming house and the site of Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit's murder. The tour then goes to the Texas Theater, where Oswald was arrested, and to the address on Neely Street where the famous photo of Oswald holding the rifle was taken. Finally, it heads to the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters, where Jack Ruby killed Oswald on live television on Nov. 24, 1963.