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 Dealey Plaza (Dallas, Texas) Posted by:  Raven
N 32° 46.736 W 096° 48.504
14S E 705260 N 3628905
Dealey Plaza is an urban park in downtown Dallas, Texas (USA). Sometimes referred to as the "birthplace of Dallas", this park was the location of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
Waymark Code: WMWYM3
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 10/31/2017
Views: 12
Dealey Plaza is a city park in downtown Dallas, Texas where three streets converge to pass under a railroad bridge. Completed in 1940, it is named after George B. Dealey, a civic leader and long-time publisher of The Dallas Morning News and owner of the A. H. Belo Corporation (a local media company). Sometimes called the "Birthplace of Dallas", this little park is probably best known as the location where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, while his motorcade was passing through Elm Street (one of the park's 3 streets which converge at the park). For this reason, this park and its nearby buildings were placed on the US National Register of Historic Places in 1993. Below are some elaborate descriptions on the city park, per excerpts from its original National Register of Historic Places file (available as a PDF download on the Texas Historical Commission's Atlas website): This generally rectangular approximately 3-acre park was formed in 1934-40 from several blocks of Dallas founder John Neely Bryan's original land grant [...] acquired by the City of Dallas [...] to create a major gateway to the city from the west, and to relieve traffic congestion at the Union terminal railroad tracks which passed north-south at the western edge of the city.
Originally called the "Elm-Main-Commerce Subway," the gateway was conceived as a "triple underpass" of streets, which afforded access to the western edge of downtown Dallas beneath the Union Terminal company tracks. To build the underpass, engineers regraded the area to slope gently down toward the west. All plans for the Plaza showed a rectangular park traversed by three streets rearranged in a bisected triangle -- Commerce to the south, Main in the middle, and Elm to the north-converging to the west in the Triple Underpass.
The park was named Dealey Plaza in 1935, in honor of George Bannerman Dealey (1859-1946), an outstanding civic leader who had advocated city planning for Dallas for decades already, publisher of The Dallas Morning News, crusader for improvements to the Trinity River corridor, and president of West of Commerce Realty Company, which had donated most of the right of way west of the underpass. The Plaza was dedicated in 1936, the same year the park was placed under the administration of the City of Dallas Park Board [...].
[...] Specific architectural features designed for Dealey Plaza included long twin concrete Reflecting Pools, with fountains, which ran north-south along the west side of Houston Street. [...] To the west of the Reflecting Pools near Main Street were curved concrete Colonnades or Peristyles that ran to the north and south, ending in pylons. [...] On both the north and south sides of Main Street tall graduated concrete obelisks were planned. The southern obelisk was replaced in 1949 by a 12-ft standing bronze Statue of George Bannerman Dealey mounted on a tall red granite plinth. [...] Between the statue and the planter box the Association placed a red granite quadripartite slab bearing four bronze bas relief tablets commemorating Dealey's philanthropic, civic, and journalistic work.
[...] Three historical markers have been added in the Plaza. A marker relating to the Kennedy assassination immediately west of the obelisk near Houston at Main Street was placed in 1967. It is a bronze bas relief mounted on red granite, with a design similar to the G.B. Dealey marker to the south. The bas relief illustrates the President's visit to Dallas in 1963, and includes a map of the motorcade route through the downtown. [...] In 1985, twin commemorative flagstaffs were installed in the center of the park on either side of Main Street.Visit Instructions:
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