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After years of decay, the city of Dallas demolished the 88-year old building at Elsbeth and Davis infamous for being where Lee Harvey Oswald lived before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The demolition of the old apartment building started around 8:30 Monday morning. By 8:40 the first level unit where the Oswald's are said to have lived was gone.
Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife Marina lived at the complex from November 1962 to March 1963, eight months before the JFK assassination.
About a half dozen curious people with a strong sense of history showed up across the street to watch and take pictures of the 88-year old building coming down.
The 88-year-old building where Oswald lived with his wife until March 1963, was torn down after years of decay. NBC's Brian Williams reports.
Jose Sorola told us he wished the Oswald unit could have been saved and perhaps been restored and part of historic tours. But since the city said it had to go, Sorola bought a small piece of it.
"Yesterday, I came by and actually bought a window from Lee Harvey Oswald's unit number two and what I plan on doing is try to restore it as best as possible, and make it a little display if anybody is interested in using that it'll be nice, perserve a little history, keep the building alive somehow," said Sorola who paid $125 for the window.
The crumbling building, located at 600 Elsbeth Street, had not been occupied for several years.
Jane Bryant, the woman who owns the building, bought it with hopes of restoring the complex, but the City of Dallas condemned the building back in 2011.
On Sunday evening several people, including Bryant, local artists, and nearby residents showed up to take wood or bricks from the building.
Freda Dillard, who takes people on JFK assassination tours, said she’s sad to see the building go.
“People are interested in it," said Dillard. "I have people that come from all over the world to take these tours and they want to see everything, including this apartment building.”
Hulton Archive / Getty Images, file
Mugshot of Lee Harvey Oswald (1939 - 1963), alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, taken by the Dallas Police department, Dallas, Texas.
“It’s very sad," added Dillard. "Tomorrow [Monday] afternoon it’s going to be gone and that’s another piece of history.”
The city won a court order in May requiring Jane Bryant to tear down the uninhabited 10-unit, two-story apartment complex. It says Bryant failed to act in the allotted time and that allowed the structure to become a nuisance.
Dallas city spokesman Frank Librio says demolition and asbestos abatement of the building is estimated to cost about $52,000. The city may place a lien on the property to recover that money.
It's unclear what will become of the space, but the property owner, Jane Bryant, has suggested perhaps it could be a dog park.
RFK Jr.: 'Very convincing' evidence that JFK wasn't killed by lone gunman
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The owner had several opportunities and quite enough time on her end to restore the landmark. She did nothing to move it along. It's sad that we are losing this kind of a landmark, but this is an example of where the owner of the property failed to do what was right, and the American taxpayer shouldn't be responsible for it.
It is sad we are losing this kind of landmark? Landmark? Explain to all of us how the apartment of an assassin does anything at all to honor American history?
It's not " honoring " American history ... it's preserving a part of it.
Who cares if he once lived there? It's not a big part in history.
It's a good thing they waited until after the assassination to raze it.
Yeah, there's enough to remind us of the assassination. This isn't the last relic of some minor historical incident, this is the outer fringe of something that has many reminders of the day.
that ain't historical...they should burn it...good rid-dense to bad memory...
@ plain bob; THANKS!! some people are just so FRIGGEN stupid!!! Lee was a peice of sh!t and so is this peice of sh!t house!! It should been "razed" in the friggen 60`s! People come from around the world to see this (as was written) POS house. What the hell is wrong with people? They should burn it and make it a friggen parking lot PERIOD!!!!!!!!!
@itsabouttime; Landmark? you must have some mighty fine hooch were`s you`s be`s at cause mine`s not that fine!!!!!
Ummm... like Tudor Hall (John Wilkes Booth's birthplace) or the Surratt House Museum? Registered historic places with museums.
It was a part of history, just as they were/are.
Start watching eBay for auctions on bricks, wood and other construction materials from the site. It'll be big business!
This building is no landmark. Just because an assassin once lived in an apartment in the building does not make it a landmark. There is no indication that anything of historical significance occurred in the building. It is nothing but a dilapidated eyesore that should be torn down. Dealey Plaza is a landmark, the Texas school book depository building where Oswald fired the shot from is a landmark, this building is not a landmark.
Does Russia have the place Lee stayed at while living there "preserved?" (Just sayin')
They should burn down the George HW Bush Library simultaneously to demolishing Lee Harvey Oswald's appartment.
I'd like the modern forensic folks to do one final sweep through for any bit of evidence before this thing is demolished . . .
PLandH
They should burn down the George HW Bush Library simultaneously to demolishing Lee Harvey Oswald's appartment.
Wrong....anything the Dubya had a hand in.............
Troy-2251798
Oooh.. did i say "honor" american history? Ooh, future generations should not see 'mistakes' made in our history. Why don't we just destroy all parts of American history.
P.S. Do you live in Dallas? I take you don't, I do...
That's alright. Aside from the loss of a historical landmark, Mr. Oswald will not be needing his apartment any longer.
The building should be quietly destroyed. As some posters pointed out, other places were turned into landmarks. the fact that this one wasn't back in the sixties ( The room where the Oswald was alleged to have fired the shots from was) means that it held no significant value in history.
"The bigger the lie, the more it is repeated, and the more adamant are those spreading it that it is truth...the more likely is it to be accepted as the truth. It will not only be accepted as truth. It will be claimed that it was always the truth. After all, we good and innocent people find it impossible to believe that anyone would have the gall to blatantly put forth something as the truth, knowing all along that it was a lie. Of course, the reality is that it happens all the time, and we never learn from that."
Kennedy's....Gun runners, bootlegers and Hitler supporter....That was Joe Kennedy.... The son paid for the sins of the father
Oswald handed the world to Satan.. This is not an overstatement..
Where is the second apartment? Is it behind the grassy knol?
JMJ: Gun dealing and running is proven to be more of a republican big business industry. Prescott Bush was Hitler's banker. All as Joe wanted to do was talk to Hitler. Reagan sold weapons to Iran delivered by Israel. So what are the sons and daughters of ZioNazis going to pay? Bootleggers flaunted an obviously unconstitutional law. So your morals seem to be about as righteous as the people responsible for President John F. Kennedy's assassination?
Some really stupid people here, and I mean the ones that don't think this is a part of history. It's your idiocy that destroys history. It was very much a part of the assassination history, but you are too stupid walking into traffic text messaging "FML LOLO ROFL" and all the other dumb crap you do on your iphone to realize it. Here's hoping that truck doesn't miss you next time, especially you JS in SD. If I want to see the most insipid post of the day, I merely have to look to you.
"One woman, who takes people on JFK assassination tours said she’s sad to see the building go."
The sh1tty people in this sh1tty country will use anything to make money.
Just goes to show how morbid some people really are!
Again, the Kennedy assassination was one of the major events in America's history. I think we should keep, for further generations, as many artifacts as possible to give a complete picture - that they can see for themselves.
Maybe Troy lives next to this eyesore?
Troy, How much money does the US govt. make running "The 6th Floor" museum in Dallas? Been there? (I have.)
As morbid as you may find it, she gives these tours to people who are interested in seeing them. That's like the "Ripper" tours that are done in London. Although much of the locations of the murders don't exist anymore there are still people who pay for the tours.
I went on a "Haunted History" tour of Boston some years ago, and part of that tour was showing where some of the victims of the Boston strangler lived. I never quite got the connection for that one,,but ohhh well.
Everyone knows George HW Bush and a klan of synagogue of Satan, Skull and Bones worshippers killed Kennedy. Only realy stupid brainwashed neo-capitalist, christeo fundementalist spawn believe in Magic Bullets!
PLandH....are you being facetious or are you really that far gone?? You my friend, are certifiable.
Point in fact: Still glorifying LHO after 50 years.
Who gives a rip about the building he lived in. He was trash and every memory of him needs to be stricken form history no record that he even had life. That goes for all sick killers. Never to be mentioned or remembered again. That is all these little insignificant killers want, to mark their place in history.
I see what you are saying however, you can't just bury your head in the sand or turn the other cheek on history. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I don't believe I have ever seen or read anybody try to glorify Oswald.
By the way, Stephen King wrote a terrific novel called "11/22/63", about a man who is able to travel back in time to try to prevent JFK's assassination. The research he did includes not just Oswald's life, but possible alternative futures according to Doris Kearns Goodwin and other historians.
I've read almost everything he's written, and this was one of his best. It will make you want to read more about the tragic events leading up to and including the assassination.
Yep still demonizing Lee Harvey Oswald the patsy and idolizing son of Prescott, Hitler's Banker, Zapata Oil, Skull and Bones stealer of Geronimo's skull, Zionist-Nazi George Herbert Walker Bush the true Killer of John F. Kennedy. The Magic Bullet has killed the brains and critical thinking abilities of many a neo-capitalist Psuedo-Christian fundamentalist pig worshipers.
Hey PlandH -
Are you aware that an investigative team painstakingly recreated the "Magic Bullet" shot and found there was nothing magical about it at all. All filmed for posterity (and in stunning super slo-mo film) by The Discovery Channel a few years ago. The magic bullet wasn't "magic" at all, after all - just an ordinary bullet doing what bullets do. Look for it - quite interesting.
Oh - but I bet the Bush family got to them, too, eh?
I agree. A part of history? And we wonder why all these nut-jobs out there want their 15 minutes of fame.
@TheTwins60 - You've never read 1984 I take it.
clotho...Mentioned that an hour so so ago, and agree its one of his best. ( i also recognised clotho some time back) funny you should use that one. The dome is excellent as well. but then again what does he write that isn't?.
Go research Prescott Bush, Elvoid. There's a reason the government put him on trial for treason. He aided Hitler trading with him to fuel the German war machine. That much is history. Not conspiracy. Curious how you've never heard that in the media through all the years of Bush leadership isn't it?
elvoid, you mean that painstakingly recreated magic bullet that they hit kennedy in the neck with in the show when he was actually hit in the head? why would anyone use that as evidence when from the get go it was flawed with a missed target and at the end the bullet didn't have enough force to even enter connolly's thigh, which leaves the thigh wound unexplained?
Yeah Elvoid: The CIA also invented a bullet that can travel a 180 deg turn and hit the front from the rear. Then there is the extra top secret bullet that can create a 4 to 6 inch hamburger hole on the way in, approaching, contact side of a skull and exit through a hole the exact size of a nearly pristine undeformed bullet. Cheers Buddy
Some claim to have actual facts, some claim to have information, everyone creates their own story. We don't know what truly happened and we never will but please don't state speculation as fact. Conspiracy is like religion, grasp a story and run with it and nothing is going to change your mind.
I've seen enough programs looking at the science of the assasination and they are usually pretty convincing that Oswald could have pulled it off alone. All of this information is from film, pictures and data, none of which paints a perfect picture.
We will never know. So much of what the publicly funded Federal Government does is a secret to all of us that pay the bills. Back alley conversations with lobbyists is of a lot more interest than the Kennedy assasination. That lie as already been buried under 50 tons of rock and dirt. Let's worry about the current wool being pulled over our eyes.
Who glorifies LHO???I am not sure I know anyone or ever read anything that does.
Oh Noooo! We must save this building! If each us gave but $1, we would only need an additional $1,000,000,000 of government funds! Let's stage a rally now. <sarcasm>
U.S. moviegoers spent $10.6 BILLION dollars in ticket sales last year... never mind the concession sales that took place.
Imagine how great this country would be if patrons had donated $1 at the door towards a good cause (Salvation Army, helping the homeless, feeding low-income children breakfast and lunch in schools, etc.), and what changes we could bring about.
Oh, wait. No. It's more important to get the large tub of popcorn.
Well, standupjokeoff, don't just pick on movie goers. What about sports. I'm sure the figure for ticket sales to all sports events would make that movie ticket figure look paltry. You could apply that to anything really. One dollar for every new car purchased. One dollar for every new home. One dollar for every major purchase. You get the picture.
Oh, what dreamers we are! Thinking world change can actually be brought about through small measures...
They should tear down the LHO apartment house and build a grand scale magic bullet shaped tower, housing the magic bullet on the lot so people can go there to bow and pray to the emperors of deception. Then the people can solidify their belief in secret, CIA, Skull and Bones boog-a-boo. God knows people die from being shot with magic bullets ever day. The demolition industry has found a cheaper way to take down sky scrapers, they fly aging used passenger planes into them and the buildings crumble uniformly into their own footprints, saving a lot of man hours and explosives.
Dallas has never valued its history, and its only real history is its history of tearing down anything and everything to put up something new.
Downtown Dallas is a parking lot with some buildings in between.
This is CRAP, An Assassin rented a an apartment in that building? Big Fking Deal. You Dallas people are sick, put up a shrine for the guy why don't you, plus I laugh at the folks taking a piece of wood from the building..WOW I got a piece of wood from a building that a killer once lived at.. VULTURES
Dallas bites.
Better get photos of it..
I'm sure being Dallas, Texas the city has already approved zoning for a sweet stucco duplex.
I'm surprised that in this day and age that people still believe that Oswald (alone) killed Kennedy. Did anyone ever read the Warren Commision Report, I suggest you do. Not that it was impossible to kill Kennedy, after all he was riding in an open vehicle but I personally never believe that Oswald acted alone and his killing a few days later? How convenient was that, the only suspect is now dead.
Thank You, HarleMan!!! I have been saying the same thing for years! When I was 17. We had to do a year end project for the final grade in English class. I did mine on the JFK assassination. I watched film of the assassination over and over again. I also watched eye witness accounts of the shooting. I also studied his position on changes in our government that he wanted to enact.
I came to the conclusion that Oswald did not make the kill shot that end JFK's life. I am no forensic specialist or anything, but If Oswald had made the kill shot JFK would have slumped forward not backwards, as that Oswald was behind the motorcade when it came by the Book suppository. Due to JFK thrown back, it is clear that the kill shot came from in front of the motorcade.
There were also eye witnesses that saw 3 very shady men lurking along the "Grassy Nole". Several saw one with an instrument case. That to me screams of a Mob hit. I will always believe that JFK was killed by a combined effort of Hoover (Who hated JFK) and the Mob(JFK was going to crack down on them). Hoover wanted to run the country and JFK reigned him in. There were a lot of entities that wanted him dead. The Federal Reserve and the world banks behind it, was one of them. He wanted to get rid of the Federal Reserve and once again print our money. It would have changed our country for the better if he had been able to do that. We would not see the huge deficit that we see now.
A great man died that day. Had he lived to do these things, our country would have been better for it. Just goes to show you how corrupt the Government has always been, even back then.
they purposely made the warren commission report so long so that very few people would ever read it cause it's full of BS. i read it cause my dad was writing a book on kennedy's assassination.
Looks like terrible construction. It looks like its made of plywood, plastic, glue, and asphalt, so of course it's falling down just like most American homes will.
thats a piece of history we can do without.
Oswald had nothing to do with the shooting. He was an FBI informer, the records prove that. The CIA did it. All evidence points directly at BUSH I.
BUSH?! Surely you jest! Bush the father did not get into politics until 1964. Bush the idiot was 17 years old.
@clem...; LMAO!!! Blame Bush!! don`t know who to blame the next 4, but it worked the 1st four!!!!
@rick.....; you got any for sale? cause im thinking you smokin some good hooch!!! enjoy your tax hike idiot!!!!!
rick, bush sr was in the CIA when kennedy was killed.
mudderfly, with a family history like the bushes have it's easy to blame them for alot of things cause it's been proven that they are from a line of scumbags.
+ Prescott Bush (father of George) made his fortune by financing the war effort of Adolph Hitler together with his banking partners and fellow "bonesmen" Averell and Roland Harriman. Prescott was stripped of his holdings in the Union Banking Corporation in 1942 under the "Trading with the Enemy Act".
Maybe they'll find the second gunman still hiding in the basement.
It's about time the eyesore was taken down.
Given America's preference of convenience over history I am sure the nieghborhood will look much better with it's 18th Starbucks or another corner Big Slurpee store. I have researched this case for well over 30 years and am convinced that Oswald did not act alone. As far as wiping him from the history books, I think that is lunacy. Like it or not assassins are a part of history and their motives and backgrounds need to be recorded and studied just like any of the other disreputible men and women that paint the canvas of history. Trying to bleach history is the knee jerk reaction of many in today's world. That would be an injustice to our roots and the very foundation America is based upon...warts and all.
jhmilam1966,
"I think that is lunacy. Like it or not assassins are a part of history and their motives and backgrounds need to be recorded and studied just like any of the other disreputible men and women that paint the canvas of history."
You make good points in your post. We are quick to tear down historic sites for economic reasons. I suppose deciding which sites should be preserved as historic sites is not an easy decision to make. I know that Ford's theater where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated has been preserved as a national historic site, but have any of the houses or apartments where his assassin, John Wilkes Booth, lived been preserved also as historic sites? I really don't know the answer to that question.
I think it's interesting how commenters want to pick and choose what belongs in history.
Im not one given to conspiracy theories. I think it is interesting that the Kennedy kids are in the news again saying they dont buy the single shooter theory. Then Ozzie's apartment is razed. I know that it was in bad repair and horrible shape. Still its interesting. I know that other people have lived there and long since cleaned out anything that might have been left behind. You know its coming.
6
hmmm
That is not a landmark by any means... It should have been torn down long ago.
It's really part of the problem. Why give crackpots their 15 minutes of fame? Just stop doing that (hey media, I'm talking to you) and I bet you will see these insane killings go down. They get their 15 minutes PLUS now..
A landmark to Oswald?????... Give me a break....
You know in cases like this the federal gov't should buy the property and then destroy it.
I don't think they had regulations in place for something like this.
The property was still valuable to the owner. Which is why the federal gov't should have bought it so it could be destroyed.
Tear the piece of Shi(t) down already. LMFAO
Steven King did a book entitled...11/22/63....It deals with this kinda-sorta (with a twist that only the King could pull off )...excellent read.
That's partially true, but that's a somewhat overly general statement, don't you think?
I've seen very penetrating and clarifying news analysis from MSNBC.
Why are you here otherwise?
culheath, I worked in the "mass-comm" and news industry for a number of years and am very familiar with how it works. Nearly all news organizations are businesses, which means their purpose to the owners is to make money. Period.
I agree that much of the news reporting and even some of the editorial content is good, but if it did not attract an audience, it won't make money. Relevance, importance and impartiality, no matter how noble, will not make money without an audience.
To answer your question, I observe the news in media for many reasons other than my interest in the news content. But, I don't accept the content of any news story at face value. There is always a spin or some type of agenda. Always.
More than one shooter? Governor Connally forced to ride "shotgun" in the limo? That's right, Connally slung the rifle over his shoulder, used the passenger side sideview mirror to find his target, pulled the trigger and then tossed the weapon down a sewer hole along the side of the road on the way to the hospital. Just sayin'...I think.
They can take a look on that grassy knoll for empty shell casings..
Might find some history in that area...?
They should not demolish Lee Harvey Oswald's apartment until they burn down the George HW Bush Library because every body knows the CIA, synagogue of Satan burning Bush is behind John F. Kennedy's assasination. Only the ignorant ever believed in a magic bullet official bankster war profiteer theory of conpiracy of infinite greed who bought all the shills that post bunk and hate here.
Well let me tell you dingbat The CIA had nothing to do with the killing and neither did Oswald. He was just
the pawn to take the blame. At the time I was training Cuban's to retake Cuba on the orders of the CIA & JFK as it needed to get it done then. The real orders about dallas was only 4 people knew the route to be taken. JFK, Jackie and the ones that wanted to be in the White House as King & Queen that hated the Kennedy's yes thats right LBJ & the Vulture Lady bird. Just a few days before the shooting JFK wrote an EO to abolish the Federal Reserve Bank and that my friends is the end of the story. My book will be published after I'm long gone, not today or I would be gone sooner than expected.
It may be an eye sore and perhaps it needs to be taken down, but I love history and I would have liked to seen this building.