Before the wrecking crew tore it down, I got a chance to see 602-604 Elsbeth, Dallas, Texas. This run down apartment north of the Bishop Arts District in Oak Cliff was the former residence to Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife, Marina. The couple lived here for six months between November 1962 to March 1963.

News reports state that Lee beat Marina and that she tried to commit suicide in the bathroom of this very apartment. Marina conceived her second daughter while living at Elsbeth.

Honestly, I did not think much about the apartment. There are a number of other significant Oswald places around the Dallas metro area.

There is Oswald’s last official residence (a boarding house) at 1026 N. Beckley Ave., Dallas.

There is the last place Oswald slept (Paine House) on November 21, 1963, at 2515 Fifth Street, Irving.

And also there is the Neely house where Oswald was photographed with the rifle and revolver at 214 W. Neely, Dallas.

But after listening to the news reports over and over again, I just had to visit the Elsbeth apartment. So, my show daughter (win, place, show) and I ventured out on another photo safari.

The Elsbeth apartment is a large horseshoe shaped complex. There are about ten to twelve units. The Oswalds lived in apartment No. 2, which was on the ground floor near the road.

We parked across the street in an empty lot. No sooner than I started taking photographs, we met the owner, Jane Bryant. Ms. Bryant purchased the complex in 2011 with the idea of fixing it up. Unfortunately, The City of Dallas said it had to come down.

Bryant immediately invited us into the fenced-off grounds. Some of the demolition had begun. There were piles of bricks and some boards covering the windows had been removed.

I expected a mess, but what I got was Gordon Keith. Mr. Keith is a television and radio host, columnist, and avid Kennedy assassination enthusiast.

I had recently met Keith at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. I was there for the “Oswald Has Been Shot!” panel discussion with some of the media who were in the Dallas Police Headquarters basement on Sunday, November 24, 1963. The highlight of the panel was Dallas Police Det. James Leavelle, who was handcuffed to Oswald when Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby. Keith asked me to take a photograph of Det. Leavelle and himself.

From what I could tell, Keith was in Oswald’s apartment removing either the toilet or the tub. After reading his column, I see it was the tub. This would make for an interesting collectible.

After a little visiting with Bryant and Keith, I got down to business. I took my photographs and recorded the GPS coordinates.

I was about to leave when Bryant told me the bricks were being auctioned on eBay. She said the current price is $11 each. I looked in my wallet and then offered $10. Bryant said no, the going price was $11 each. So, I paid $11 for a brick. I got one from the pile of bricks nearest apartment No. 2.

Bryant walked us out of the fenced area and watched us leave. I couldn’t help thinking she didn’t want us taking any more bricks.

Update – May 24, 2013

I got a call from Jane Bryant yesterday. Apparently she was none to pleased with this post. Ms. Bryant demanded that I removed her from my website. She stated her graciousness in allowing me onto the property, which I agreed. She denies selling me a brick for $11 instead of the $10 I offered, which is untrue. And she did watch me leave the property, also true. Ms. Bryant even criticized my site for having the comments section turned off, which is standard after a few weeks on all WordPress site. After not being able to get a word in the conversation, I simply thanked her for calling and hung up.

A word to the wise: you will catch more flies with honey than vinegar. If Ms. Bryant asked kindly, I would have been happy to comply. Food for thought. Cheers.

Related Posts

Gordon Keith: Crazy, haunting memories of 604 Elsbeth, where Lee Harvey Oswald lived in Dallas

There are some images that have nothing to do with the Kennedy assassination other than I thought it would be nice to photograph them because I was in the neighborhood. In addition to Kennedy related subjects I also got gangster Al Capone, writer Ernest Hemingway’s birthplace home, actor Robert Reed and poet Shel Silverstein.

More than you ever wanted to read can be found in the Travel Log: Kennedy Assassination Tour Summer 2012. I tried as best I could to update the log daily with what, when and where I was during the tour.

Kenned Assassination Tour Summer 2012 Gallery

Click any of the thumbnail images below to see a larger version.

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Wow! I’ve been waiting for my mother’s first Holga photos for nearly two weeks now and I finally have the negatives on my scanner.

My mother, Charly Butcher (www.imagesbycharly.com), lives in Phoenix, Arizona. The JFK hearse was up for auction at Barrett-Jackson in Scottsdale.

Read John F. Kennedy’s Dallas Hearse up for Auction in Scottsdale (Jan. 17, 2012) for how this all began.

Charly bought her first Holga (there will be others) at a local camera retailer and resisted the urge to buy other camera equipment (one of her husband’s dreams). She then proceeded with her husband in tow (actually, he drove) to the auction, where she did the best she could with absolutely zero Holga experience, poor lighting, a crowd of people and less than ideal scenery.

As of right now, I have only scanned one roll of film. This image came off a roll of Kodak TMAX 400. Of the twelve images, this was the only one that came out. Talk about lucky.

I will be scanning the other two rolls in a few minutes. I can already see there are images to be had.

I can’t than my mother enough for being part of my JFK project, Death by Holga: 11.22.63. Cheers.

Another Photo

Okay, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. And you can’t take Holga photos without the back coming off every now and again (I’ve done it three or four time).

The following image is not a CGI background for the next Star Trek movie. It is in fact a shot of the Barrett-Jackson showroom floor after the back of my mother’s Holga came off. This is a happy accident, because the image is quite lovely.

This is a short list of the items that ring a bell with me. There are a lot of events, births and deaths that happened in 1963 not included in my list. Visit Wikipedia for more information about 1963.

Events

• Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci is exhibited at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. – January 8
• George C. Wallace becomes governor of Alabama – January 14
• Travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens is made illegal by President Kennedy – February 8
• Iron Man debuts in Marvel Comics – March
• Mount Agung erupts on Bali and kills 11,000 people – March 16
• The federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island closes – March 21
• The Beatles release their first album, Please Please Me – March 22
• General Hospital debuts on ABC – April 1
• Martin Luther King, Jr. arrested in Birmingham, Alabama – April 12
• Dr. No debuts in U.S. – May 8
• Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper launches into space – May 15
• Alabama Governor George C. Wallas tries prevent integration at the University of Alabama – June 11
• Pope Paul VI succeeds Pope John XXIII – June 21
• President Kennedy gives speech in West Berlin – June 26
• Zip codes are introduced in U.S. – July 1
• Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers I Have a Dream speech in Washington, D.C. – August 25
• Marvel Comics release first X-Men comic book – September
• Sports car company Lamborghini is founded – October 30
• President Johnson establishes the Warren Commission – November 19
• The Sword in the Stone debuts – December 25
• I Want to Hold Your Hand and I Saw Her Standing There by The Beatles are released in U.S. – December 26

Births

• David Cone, baseball player – January 2
• Hakeem Olajuwon, Nigerian basketball player – January 21
• Seal Henry Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel, British singer – February 19
• Charles Barkley, basketball player – February 20
• Joel Osteen, televangelist – March 5
• Bret Michael, rock singer for Poison – March 15
• Vanessa Williams, American beauty queen and actress – March 18
• Kathy Ireland, supermodel – March 20
• Elle Macpherson, Australian supermodel – March 29
• Julian Lennon, British musician and son of John Lennon – April 8
• Conan O’Brien, talk show host – April 18
• Natasha Richardson, actress – May 11
• Mike Myers, Canadian actor – May 25
• Johnny Depp, actor – June 9
• Helen Hunt, actress – June 15
• George Michael, British singer – June 25
• Christopher George Kennedy, son of Robert Kennedy – July 4
• Phoebe Cates, actress – July 16
• Lisa Kudrow, actress – July 30
• Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, son of John F. Kennedy – August 7
• Whitney Houston, singer – August 9
• John Stamos, actor – August 19
• Tori Amos, singer – August 22
• Michael Chiklis, actor – August 30
• Randy Johnson, baseball player – September 10
• Mark McGwire, baseball player – October 1
• Elisabeth Shue, actress – October 6
• Norm MacDonald, Canadian comedian – October 17
• Lauren Holly, actress – October 28
• Sarah Brown, wife of British Prime Minister – October 31
• Rob Schneider, actor – October 31
• Rick Allen, drummer for Def Leppard – November 1
• Terri Schiavo, right-to-die cause – December 3
• Benjamin Bratt, actor – December 16
• Brad Pitt, actor – December 18
• Jennifer Beals, actress – December 19
• Jim Harbaugh, football player and coach – December 23
• Patrick Sean Payton, football coach – December 29

Deaths

• Jean Piccard, Swiss-American chemist, engineer, and balloonist – January 28
• Robert Frost, poet – January 29
• Sylvia Plath, poet and writer – February 11
• Patsy Cline, country singer – March 5
• Elmore James, Blues guitarist, singer and band leader – May 24
• Pope John XXIII, Roman Catholic Pope – June 3
• Jacques Villon, French Cubist painter – June 9
• Medgar Evers, civil rights victim – June 12
• Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, son of John F. Kennedy – August 9
• Georges Braque, Cubist painter – August 31
• Jean Cocteau, French writer and artist – October 11
• Edith Piaf, French singer – October 11
• Robert Franklin Stroud, “Birdman of Alcatraz” – November 21
• Aldous Huxley, British writer – November 22
• John F. Kennedy, President of the United States of America – November 22
• J. D. Tippit, Dallas Patrolman – November 22
• Lee Harvey Oswald, alleged assassin – November 24
• Dinah Washington, jazz and blues singer – December 14
• Gorgeous George Wagner, wrestler – December 26

All photographs should be taken using a Holga camera (reg or pinhole). The images should bring interest and reverence to the subject matter. The assembled book should include an image of the grave marker, GPS coordinates, a simple map of the cemetery and a brief description of the person. Pages of living people will only include city and state locations and what they are doing now.

The Kennedy Project should be completed in book form prior to the 50^th anniversary in 2013.