Dealey Plaza, Historic district in downtown Dallas, United States
Dealey Plaza is a city park in the West End Historic District of downtown Dallas, laid out along Elm, Main and Commerce streets where they converge at the Triple Underpass. Two rectangular reflecting pools with curved concrete colonnades run along Houston Street, and concrete planters holding oak trees stand between the pools and the colonnades. A tall graduated obelisk rises east of the planter box on the north side of Main Street.
The president was shot here on November 22, 1963, as his motorcade rounded the curve and gunfire came from the book depository. A few years later, the site gained official protection to keep the physical setting from that day intact.
The plaza is named for George Dealey, the newspaper publisher who led the Dallas Morning News and pressed for the civic improvement that produced the park. The term "grassy knoll", coined for the slope beside Elm Street, has entered English slang to suggest suspicion or cover-up.
You can walk through the district and stand on the intersection and surrounding sidewalks, where markers and signs explain what happened step by step. Most visitors come in the morning or early afternoon, when the light is good and the street stays quieter.
The white X on Elm Street is repainted by city crews when it wears away, and it marks the spot where the first shot struck the president. The grassy knoll, a low slope northwest of the motorcade's path, gave its name to a slang term for suspicion or cover-up.
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