35mm color slide of Dealey Plaza and the Texas School Book Depository from 1963

Back

Original 35mm color slide of Dealey Plaza and the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas, Texas. The image was taken by amateur photographers Rudy and Vera Clauss on Saturday, November 23, the day after the assassination of President Kennedy. The image shows several bystanders in Dealey Plaza looking towards the Texas School Book Depository building. Several cars can be seen on Elm Street, and the Dal-Tex building is visible in the background.

Object Details

Object title:

35mm color slide of Dealey Plaza and the Texas School Book Depository from 1963

Date:

11/23/1963

Terms:

Photographs

Dealey Plaza

Elm Street

Houston Street

Texas School Book Depository

Dal-Tex Building

Dallas

Medium:

Cardboard, Film

Dimensions:

2 × 2 in. (5.1 × 5.1 cm)

Credit line:

Rudy and Vera Clauss Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

Object number:

2018.006.0020

Curatorial Note:

In this photograph taken the day after the assassination, the right side of the southeast corner window is raised on the sixth floor of the Depository building. In another photograph in this series from the same day, the right side is closed though the left side has been opened. Investigators and news media accessed the sixth floor during the assassination weekend, and a number of photographs - as well as news film - were taken looking out onto Dealey Plaza from the southeast corner window. Isadore Bleckman of Fox Movietone News, for example, recalls visiting the sixth floor of the Depository on Saturday (the day this amateur photo was taken): "Yeah, we came up here, and they let me shoot through the window where he was, and they showed the cardboard boxes that were stacked around [where] he camouflaged himself.... I looked out that window and I thought to myself... yeah, I could hit something moving like that, but I wouldn't have the nerve or the stomach or the anything to do something." -- Stephen Fagin, Curator