Downtown Dallas was abuzz with people from all over the globe yesterday. While the larger crowds seemed to be at Dealey Plaza,naturally, the crowds are only going to increase over the next several weeks. City Hall drew people from LA taking pictures of the flags on the plaza. Five different Quinceaneras and their Court of Honor filled the area of Pioneer Plaza where the cattle drive bronzes cross the stream. It was a mix of tourist and locals all intermingled in the way it is supposed to be.
The tour business was active, too. Three stretch limos were unloading and reloading. An entertainment bus did the same. Then came the escorted tour of segways followed by the little red trolley that advertised "see Dallas in 75 minutes". The heart beat of Dallas on Saturday was, without doubt, in downtown.
The couple from LA said that they had been on a tour of AT&T Stadium (Cowboys) in Arlington earlier. They ask about restaurants. While I usually don't recommend , I mentioned a couple from high end down to just good cooking. Others had also recommended the good cooking and they reached their decision right there on City Hall plaza under the flag poles and headed out to have their dinner at Sonny Bryant's. The traveling were also traveling while visiting Dallas but they were eating, as well. That translates into tourist dollars and I don't know a Chamber of Commerce anywhere that doesn't like that concept.
Traffic on North Central Expressway ( NCX, 75, Central Expressway) was at a crawl from the High 5 south to North Park. 635 LBJ was a mess because of the final paving occurring on the new re-do from Coit to Preston Road. It will be the first stretch of the 11 mile project to be complete. Is it going to help? Most likely not. I don't think traffic in Dallas will ever catch-up with the growth. And imagine if the DART Rail wasn't at the stage it is currently. The only think keeping pace with the traffic is DART Rail and TRE to Ft. Worth and A-Train connects to Denton. In the perfect world, DART would already be running out of DFW (although this time next year they will be about to turn the key) and neither the TRE or DART would have a line running in Arlington where both cities could ride to a Rangers, Cowboys, Six Flags day and leave the parking where the car is--at home! But, I suspect that the parking vendors and others don't want that. It is a capitalistic society that we live in today. The political arms still pull the strings and pulls them when they want them pulled.
From an observation point, Dallas is ready for the 50th Anniversary of JFK's death here in Dallas. I would have liked to have attended the ceremony, but I didn't have the luck in the drawing for tickets. There have been only three events that I can recall where I was at the exact moment the event occurred. JFK's shooting, Neil Armstrong's landing on the moon and the attack on the World Trade Center buildings. JFK: I was in my high school history class 1200 miles away when the CBS report came across the intercom; the moon landing: I was crossing the Ohio River at Cincinnati and the attack on the World Trade Center: I was at the mail box on my way to work when one of my neighbors ask if I had been watching the reports on television. But, it is the JFK weekend that found me glued to the television and actually seeing Lee Harvey Oswald being shot on television by Jack Ruby. Today, when I pass any of those buildings, Parkland, the old police station on Harwood, or Dealey Plaza, it still brings back that entire time frame of mourning and disbelief and the stunning and shocking fact that our President had been killed.
I ask this question two years to late!
All this leads to one simple question of though. We all have seen the spot where Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in on board the president's plane and I wondered if that spot was ever actually reported on a map or some historic sign that LBJ became President on this spot? Realizing, of course, that it is inside the secure area of Love Field, I've never heard a report of where that plane was parked while the president was in his motorcade. I know where Air Force One parks at Love Field in modern time, but where did they hanger the plane at Love Field on that fateful day in November 50 years ago this month? It appears now that someone did ask that very question but not until two years ago for the first time since that deadly day.
I'm just two years late on this one, but that is still enough to keep me in the running for asking "historical" questions! I'll settle for that. Staff Writer David Flick of the Dallas News did an article on 21 November 2011. According to that, I was just under two years, then. Some 48-years passed without anyone asking the question. Ironically, it was a photograph that led to the actual spot at Love Field being located in gps coordinates for history sake.
The tour business was active, too. Three stretch limos were unloading and reloading. An entertainment bus did the same. Then came the escorted tour of segways followed by the little red trolley that advertised "see Dallas in 75 minutes". The heart beat of Dallas on Saturday was, without doubt, in downtown.
The couple from LA said that they had been on a tour of AT&T Stadium (Cowboys) in Arlington earlier. They ask about restaurants. While I usually don't recommend , I mentioned a couple from high end down to just good cooking. Others had also recommended the good cooking and they reached their decision right there on City Hall plaza under the flag poles and headed out to have their dinner at Sonny Bryant's. The traveling were also traveling while visiting Dallas but they were eating, as well. That translates into tourist dollars and I don't know a Chamber of Commerce anywhere that doesn't like that concept.
Traffic on North Central Expressway ( NCX, 75, Central Expressway) was at a crawl from the High 5 south to North Park. 635 LBJ was a mess because of the final paving occurring on the new re-do from Coit to Preston Road. It will be the first stretch of the 11 mile project to be complete. Is it going to help? Most likely not. I don't think traffic in Dallas will ever catch-up with the growth. And imagine if the DART Rail wasn't at the stage it is currently. The only think keeping pace with the traffic is DART Rail and TRE to Ft. Worth and A-Train connects to Denton. In the perfect world, DART would already be running out of DFW (although this time next year they will be about to turn the key) and neither the TRE or DART would have a line running in Arlington where both cities could ride to a Rangers, Cowboys, Six Flags day and leave the parking where the car is--at home! But, I suspect that the parking vendors and others don't want that. It is a capitalistic society that we live in today. The political arms still pull the strings and pulls them when they want them pulled.
From an observation point, Dallas is ready for the 50th Anniversary of JFK's death here in Dallas. I would have liked to have attended the ceremony, but I didn't have the luck in the drawing for tickets. There have been only three events that I can recall where I was at the exact moment the event occurred. JFK's shooting, Neil Armstrong's landing on the moon and the attack on the World Trade Center buildings. JFK: I was in my high school history class 1200 miles away when the CBS report came across the intercom; the moon landing: I was crossing the Ohio River at Cincinnati and the attack on the World Trade Center: I was at the mail box on my way to work when one of my neighbors ask if I had been watching the reports on television. But, it is the JFK weekend that found me glued to the television and actually seeing Lee Harvey Oswald being shot on television by Jack Ruby. Today, when I pass any of those buildings, Parkland, the old police station on Harwood, or Dealey Plaza, it still brings back that entire time frame of mourning and disbelief and the stunning and shocking fact that our President had been killed.
I ask this question two years to late!
All this leads to one simple question of though. We all have seen the spot where Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in on board the president's plane and I wondered if that spot was ever actually reported on a map or some historic sign that LBJ became President on this spot? Realizing, of course, that it is inside the secure area of Love Field, I've never heard a report of where that plane was parked while the president was in his motorcade. I know where Air Force One parks at Love Field in modern time, but where did they hanger the plane at Love Field on that fateful day in November 50 years ago this month? It appears now that someone did ask that very question but not until two years ago for the first time since that deadly day.
I'm just two years late on this one, but that is still enough to keep me in the running for asking "historical" questions! I'll settle for that. Staff Writer David Flick of the Dallas News did an article on 21 November 2011. According to that, I was just under two years, then. Some 48-years passed without anyone asking the question. Ironically, it was a photograph that led to the actual spot at Love Field being located in gps coordinates for history sake.
 |
| One of many limos arriving and departing Pioneer Plaza for quinceaneras and their court of honor |
 |
| Tourist were arriving and departing the area in large numbers |
 |
| A Rose from the Rose Garden of Perkins Chapel at the Joe & Lois Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University in memory of JFK |
