Dealey Plaza

Dealey Plaza, (pronounced deal-lee) in Dallas, Texas, United States, is famous as the location of the John F. Kennedy assassination in 1963. Dealy Plaza is a park on the west edge of downtown Dallas where three streets converge (Main Street, Elm Street, and Commerce Street) and pass through a triple underpass. The plaza is named for George Bannerman Dealey (1859-1946), the publisher of the Dallas Morning News, who had campaigned for the area's revitalization. Many believe the monuments outlining the plaza are there to honor the assassinated president, but they actually honor those who fought in World War I and predate Kennedy's visit by many years.

An aerial view of Dealey Plaza,
path of the President's Limo
(Warren Commission Photo)
larger version

Dealey Plaza contains the infamous Texas School Book Depository building (where Lee Harvey Oswald fired from a sixth floor window), grassy knoll (from which many said a second gunman may have fired at the president), and triple underpass (under which the motorcade raced after the shots were fired). Today the plaza is typically filled with tourists visiting the assassination site and the museum that now occupies the old School Book Depository.

After the assassination, city leaders decreed that Dealey Plaza and the surrounding buildings would be maintained in their 1963 condition to preserve the area in honor of the fallen president. Therefore, nothing has been torn down or rebuilt in the immediate area. (No monument commemorating the assassination exists in the plaza, but a Kennedy memorial was built in a park a couple blocks away.) Visitors to Dealey Plaza today will see street lights and street signs that were in use in 1963 and the exterior of the buildings immediately surrounding the plaza have not been changed since 1963 (a stark contrast from the ultra-modern Dallas skyline that rises around it).