An Evening in Dallas

I have long wanted to visit Dallas, Texas.  Although our company has a few offices in Texas, all of them are situated well outside of the city.  Thus, in the few times I had been in the area, I was not able to drive into Dallas to visit a particular site that I have long wanted to see.  The site I’m referring to is Dealey Plaza where on November 22, 1963, US President John F. Kennedy (JFK) was assassinated by a lone gunman named Lee Harvey Oswald.

But this past Monday, an American friend at work who is a long-time Dallas resident, volunteered to give me a tour of the city.  Since summer days are quite long here, we decided to do the tour after the project team’s dinner.  He knew that I’ve long wanted to visit Dealey Plaza and that’s where he immediately took me.

It was around 7:30 p.m. when we got to the place.  There was still a fair amount of sunlight left.  The following  shows the picture I took as soon as I got off my friend’s car:

The red brick, seven-story building in the center of the picture above is called the Dallas County Administration Building.  However, back in 1963, this building was known as the Texas School Book Depository.  At the time, the building was named for a private business that used it as a multi-story warehouse for school textbooks.  For the purposes of this blog entry, I will refer to this building by its former name.  It was by this building’s sixth floor corner window where Lee Harvey Oswald took his position as he waited for the presidential motorcade to pass by.  The building is on Elm Street which intersects with Houston Street, the street I was on when I took the picture.

But before I proceed any further with the other photos in this entry, let me first share with you the following video clip from the Discovery Channel that detailed the moments leading to JFK’s assassination.  It also shows the building above and its immediate surroundings.

The building below is called the Old Red Courthouse.  It is now a museum but back in 1963, the building served as the Dallas County Courthouse.  I took the picture from Dealey Plaza.  The street in the foreground is Houston Street while the street at the side of the Old Red Courthouse is called Main Street.

The building above is shown about 12 seconds into the video.  The video showed President Kennedy’s open limousine driving down Main Street and then making a right into Houston Street, or to my left from where I stood above.  The courthouse’s stone arches can be clearly seen on film as the presidential limousine made its way past them.  This building is only a block away from the Texas School Book Depository. 

I walked a block closer to the Depository and took the following shot: 

President Kennedy was in an open car and waving to supporters when his car passed in front of this building.  I was standing on Elm Street when I took the picture below of part of the building’s facade:

From the picture above, you will see a black plaque or marker and a green sign below it at the lower right corner of the building’s facade.  Also note the corner window on the sixth floor that is in a half-open position.  The following picture shows both marker and sign up close:

As mentioned earlier, the building now houses Dallas County’s administrative offices.  However, the building’s sixth floor is now a museum dedicated to the JFK Assassination.  The museum’s logo shows seven horizontal bars to signify the number of floors in the building.  Except for the white bar that is second from the top, the rest of the bars are in the same color as the building’s bricks. 

The following is a close up shot of the marker.  Note how one vandal carved a line under the word “ALLEGEDLY” in the last paragraph of the inscription:

The following is a picture I took of the Sixth Floor Window.  It was from this window where Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shot that fatally wounded President Kennedy.  The window is in a simulated half-open position to show the way it looked on the day of the assassination.  There is actually a pane of glass within it to keep the entire window closed.

After taking the picture above, I turned to my left and took the following picture of a part of Elm Street on the left and the infamous Grassy Knoll on the right:

Another shot of the Grassy Knoll.  My friend told me that regardless of the time of day, there are always small groups of people present here, be they tourists or history buffs. 

The following is a shot of Elm Street and a triple underpass in the background.  President Kennedy’s limousine was on this stretch of Elm Street when he was fatally shot.  It is to be noted that at this particular point, Mr. Kennedy’s car was only two or three seconds away from entering the freeway that would have taken him to his next scheduled event for that day. 

Below was the last shot I took of both Elm Street and the Grassy Knoll.  Again, one can see from it how close JFK’s car was to the underpass and the freeway that could have saved his life. 

Just a few other things about this site. 

My photos failed to capture it but aside from the sad event that took place here many years ago, this part of Dallas’s West End District is also a rather lonely place to visit especially in the evenings.  There are quite a number of old warehouses and office buildings in the area; a number of them date back to the 19th Century; a number of them have  long been abandoned and unused; and a number are in a state of decay and/or disrepair. 

There are some nice government buildings like the Old Red Courthouse but a majority of the buildings in this area are all either for office or commercial use.  I didn’t see any condominium buildings or residential apartments in the immediate vicinity of the Depository.  In the evening hour that I was there, I saw very few people on the streets.  It is even a safe bet for me to say that  the ones I caught in my photos above made up the majority of the people who were present in the area during that time.  Thus, this section of Dallas literally becomes a ghost town after people leave their offices for home at the end of the workday.

The Philippines also figured briefly in Lee Harvey Oswald’s troubled personal history.  He joined the US Marines when he was 18 and was a trained sniper.  His Marine unit was stationed in the Philippines from late November 1957 to about March 1958.   He spent time in both Subic Bay in Olongapo and Corregidor during those months.   (Source:  “The Missing Chapter:  Lee Harvey Oswald in the Far East” by Jack R. Swike)

But even if I didn’t end up staying long, I’m glad that I was finally able to make this trip.  On a personal level, this is a place I had wanted to visit ever since I was child.  I learned about the JFK assassination from my parents and through a book they gave me as a gift.  Like many people of their generation, they spoke highly of JFK.  They admired his intelligence, charisma and idealism.  Thus, in a sentimental way, I also made this trip for them.  Aside from those, the history buff in me wanted to be there because it was a site where history was made.  It was a place where an assassination profoundly changed our world and maybe sadly, not for the better.

John Lennon Lived Here

Took a few days away from work a few weeks ago in order to get a much needed break.  The past couple of months at work were hell for me in terms of workload.  I had to spend long hours at work just to be able to get rid of all the “pending” stuff on my desk.  Anyway, enough words said about work.

Some of you know by now that I’m a huge John Lennon fan.   So what I did one morning was to take a trip up to the Upper West Side of Manhattan, to visit the place where he once lived and where he, unfortunately, also died.   I’ve long thought about making the trip but except for a quick “drive by” or two to the place through the kindness of cousins, I have not had the chance to really visit the place in all the many years I’ve lived here.

For me, a “real” visit to a place involves getting off a vehicle in order to spend a few moments walking around a particular spot or monument, to get a chance to internalize and appreciate an area’s atmosphere and surroundings, and to reflect on the event(s) that took place there.  Thus, within an hour after I left my place, I was finally at the spot I’ve long wanted to be, standing in front of the building where a rock legend once lived, the Dakota.

Standing at the northwest corner of Central Park West and West 72nd Street, the Dakota opened its doors in 1884 as an apartment building that catered to New York’s wealthy.  It served as John Lennon’s residence from 1973 to 1980.  John Lennon moved to the United States from England in 1971.  He fell in love with  New York City because it was a place where people generally respected his privacy.   In fact, his widow, Yoko Ono, and son, Sean, still live in the Dakota.

The Lennons reportedly bought the entire 7th floor of the building.  In the photo above, the 7th floor is marked with the long metal balcony.

The photo above shows the infamous entrance to the driveway leading into the Dakota’s courtyard.  I say this entrance is “infamous” because it was by those gates where John Lennon was fatally shot by Marc David Chapman after he (Lennon) had gotten off his car to greet some fans that fateful night of December 8, 1980.

Across the street from the Dakota is Central Park.  And within a stone’s throw from the Dakota is a section of the park called Strawberry Fields.  The main attraction at Strawberry Fields is this mural shown above that’s lying on the ground.  In its very center is the word “Imagine”, named after a song John Lennon wrote and issued in 1971 that longed for a world where men live in peace and harmony.

It was said that Ms. Ono wanted the mural to be placed on the ground rather than on a raised monument so as to be in keeping with Mr. Lennon’s ideals that no man should be above any other, that we are all equal in this world.

(By the way, those painted nails weren’t mine.  Hehehe)

Above is a photo of the Dakota as it appears through the trees of Strawberry Fields in Central Park.  This photo was taken a few steps away from the “Imagine” mural.

The photo above was taken as I was about to leave the area.  It shows West 72nd Street with the Dakota on the left and all the other residential and commercial buildings on it.

Although my visit was brief, I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it.  There are still a lot of places around Manhattan that I’ve always wanted to visit but never really took the time to.  I’m starting to think that having spent decades of my life focused on work, that it’s about time that I get off the fast lane every now and then to admire and learn more about the world around me.

Photo credits:  M

A Couple of Pics from Saturday

I hope everyone’s been well.

Let me just share with you a couple of pictures I took from last Saturday when I drove an aunt and a cousin down to Princeton, New Jersey.  They are here for a week and are scheduled to fly back to Los Angeles, California this coming Wednesday.

I used my cellphone’s camera when I took both pictures so please pardon me if they (the pictures) seem a bit grainy.   They are of a couple of buildings within the campus of Princeton University.  Here is the picture I took as I stood outside the university’s campus store while my aunt and cousin were doing some shopping:

And here’s a shot of the second building that stands to the left of the campus store:

Both structures tend to remind one of buildings in Old Europe.  It is nice to take a walk within the university’s campus on sunny weekends because of the quiet atmosphere.  The campus is not only open to its students and staff but also to the public.  One is free to just walk in and around the campus to enjoy the sights.  Thus, it is fairly common to see individuals, couples and families with little kids stroll around its grounds on weekends. 

Although the day started out as cloudy, the weather eventually turned much nicer in the early afternoon.  There was a nice afternoon breeze going when I took the pictures.  If I had my way, I would have taken a nice afternoon nap on its neatly maintained grounds.

Saturday Morning in Hoboken

I drove out last Saturday morning to run a few personal errands.  It was a beautiful Spring morning and while stopped at a red light, I decided to take a (very) few shots of the street scenes and a few buildings within the City of Hoboken in New Jersey.

At the center of the photo above is Hoboken’s City Hall at 94 Washington Street.   It has served as Hoboken’s city hall since 1883.

A shot of a few more buildings in the vicinity of City Hall.  I wish I could tell you the architectural style of the building that’s standing at the corner.  My guess is that it is of the Tudor style but I’m probably wrong.  Don’t take my word for it.

That particular building also has for one of its tenants, a bar at its ground floor.  The bar caught my attention because of its name which I found to be pretty cool.  If you look a bit closer, you would be able to make out the sign that bears its name: “Bar None”.   Pretty witty and cool, in my opinion.

Lastly, the photo above shows a few of the many row houses that line both sides of Washington Street.  In fact, such five-story row houses are prevalent throughout Hoboken.  Many of these structures, called brownstones, have been around since the latter part of the 19th Century.  Although the exteriors of these structures have managed to remain  pretty close to the way they looked when built, a lot of their interiors have been renovated and modernized.  A lot of these row houses now house one and two-bedroom condominiums and are homes to young urban professionals who often commute to work in New York City.

The City of Hoboken has one similarity to Makati City’s business district in the Philippines in that both were developed by a family.  Where Makati City’s business district was developed by the Ayala family through their Ayala Corporation, the City of Hoboken was developed and founded by the Stevens family.

The City of Hoboken was founded on March 28, 1855 and through the Stevens family’s Hoboken Land & Improvement Company, the family developed the one square-mile city’s grid of city streets and built a lot of the five-story row houses that still exist to this day.   It is a well planned city that it has been designated as a Walkers’ Paradise by www.WalkScore.com.

I was driving when I took all the shots above with my cellphone.  I could have taken more but I wasn’t lucky enough to run into more red lights that would have afforded me to take more decent shots.  Anyway, I just wanted to share with you some shots of a community in the East Coast that I’m quite fond of.