DALLAS — On any given day for the last 60 years, people have pointed, stared, and spouted their theories about what happened that November day in 1963.
There are tours.
There are old newspapers.
There are any number of ways you can spend your time and money in Dealey Plaza remembering the death of a president.
“Dealey Plaza has become the assassination entertainment venue in Dallas,” said historian Farris Rookstool III. “It is really a commercial entity down there.”
But if you walk just one block south, you will find a towering monument of four walls dedicated to the life and ideas of John F. Kennedy rather than the specter of his assassination. However, perhaps unsurprisingly, you will not find the same crowds that flock to Dealey Plaza.
The JFK Memorial was designed by architect Philip Johnson and dedicated in 1970 to serve as a cenotaph to Kennedy and “a place of quiet refuge, an enclosed place of thought and contemplation separated from the city around, but near the sky and earth,” according to the placard that sits in front of it.
Here you will not find the museums or vendors capitalizing on people’s curious fascinations.
“This memorial was created for solemn reflection. Not to create controversy,” said Rookstool.
But though the interest with Dealey Plaza endures, the reverence and respect shown to the JFK Memorial has deteriorated through the decades. Once the site of a ceremony and wreath laying every anniversary, acknowledgments and events around the memorial have all but disappeared.
It is not the hope or promise made in 1970 when the monument’s dedication symbolized a sense of healing in the city of Dallas. Robert Cullum, the chairman of the Dallas Chamber of Commerce, stood before a large crowd that day and spoke to the monument’s new place in downtown.
“The shock of that day has largely healed, the sensitive rawness of penance is passed,” said Cullum. “So this happy day, we come to pay tribute to the life of that winsome man, not his death.”
Kennedy’s sister, Eunice Shriver, visited the memorial in 1972 found the memorial to be a fitting tribute and gesture from the city of Dallas, adding there was no animosity between the city and her family.
“It is a touching memorial and I think it is very lovely,” Shriver said. “I appreciate the support the people have given to that. They have been very generous and tried to commemorate my brother in very positive and spiritual ways.”
53 years after its dedication, Rookstool believes Dallas city leadership has neglected the memorial and only took the steps to clean up the area ahead of the 50th anniversary in 2013.
“It is embarrassing," Rookstool said. "This is a place of respect and it should be treated as such.”
He hopes the Dallas leadership will once again start acknowledging each anniversary with some kind of ceremony at the memorial as they did for many years.