Dealey Plaza, Then and Now

Dealey Plaza, 1963 and Now

These pictures were taken on a visit to Dallas in late November. I happened to be at Dealey Plaza at around noon (the same time of day of the Kennedy assasination), and stood on the same pedestal where Abraham Zapruder filmed the  assasination of JFK. I then took a quick series of pictures, perhaps 12 in all, without making any measurements or adjustments.
When I came back home I overlapped them with the Zapruder film.
Mr. Zapruder must have been about as tall as I am. The pictures overlap perfectly. Even the shadows cast by the people standing on the site, then and now, align perfectly.
What was most revealing for me was the quality of today’s technology and the minute size of the Zapruder film. My pictures were taken with an older 6 megapixel camera, yet the image size is much bigger and sharper than Zapruder’s film.  In comparison, his footage looks as if he had been filming through a peephole. In a way it was: a peephole into a historical event.
Dealey Plaza has changed over the years. In the pictures it becomes apparent that the old Stemons Freeway sign (which obstructed several frames of the Zapruder film) has been completely removed, and the street lamps have been set back from the pavement  edge of the sidewalk.

Dealey Plaza, 1963 and NowDealey Plaza, 1963 and NowDealey Plaza, 1963 and Now
This article was was also published by me on cnn.com

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