The Abraham Zapruder House: From Dallas 1963 to Dallas 2013

Earlier this week, I told you about 3909 Marquette, which was once the home address of Abraham Zapruder, the man who took the video of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas 50 years ago. He filmed meticulously with a Bell & Howell Zoomatic Director Series Model 414 PD camera and his work today remains the sole video chronicle of the horrific event.

Today, of course, marks the 50th year of that day that none of us will ever forget. I was in elementary school, second grade, and too young to register much of what was going on. Mostly I remember our teacher sobbing. School was dismissed for four days and we were at home, watching TV for hours trying to make sense out of what had happened “down” in Dallas. And I’ll admit it: I was scared and sad to see how Caroline Kennedy and John John were left without a dad.

Last Sunday, the New York Times published a story by a young chap, St. Mark’s grad James McAuley, a Harvard grad and Marshall scholar studying history at the University of Oxford: The City With a Death Wish in Its Eye:Dallas’s Role in Kennedy’s Murder. It basically says Dallas is a bastion of right wing nuts:

The far right of 1963 and the radicalism of my grandparents’ generation may have faded in recent years, they remain very much alive in Dallas. Look no further than the troop of gun-rights activists who appeared just days ago, armed and silent, outside a meeting of local mothers concerned about gun violence. If this is what counts as responsible civic dialogue, then Dallas has a long way still to go.

Those brighter than I have countered James’ writing. While he is obviously a bright young man, the elements he writes about that existed in Dallas, 1963, have been neutralized dramatically by hordes of newcomers, including myself, who came here and fell in love with the “city that killed Kennedy.”

Bright young boy, yes, but I’m not sure James did his homework.

No, a city did not kill Kennedy, a nutcase did, just as nutcases slammed two jets into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and almost got the U.S. Capitol.

As Steve Blow says, it’s time to move on. This house is Dallas, 1963.

And this, is Dallas, the future.