The Sixth Floor Museum has announced the release of a new digital web-based experience for exploring the history of Dealey Plaza.
According to the Sixth Floor Museum, the Dealey Plaza National Historic Landmark District's interactive guide offers a variety of multimedia features to explore the history of Dealey Plaza and the events that happened there on November 22, 1963.
The interactive guide will include a narrated walking tour to help visitors navigate the site of the Kennedy assassination, an interactive map detailing places of historic interest around the Plaza, and two visual stories that explore the memorialization of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the history of Dealey Plaza beginning with the founding of Dallas.
Films, photographs, oral histories, and other historical content from the Museum's collections are featured throughout the guide, the Sixth Floor Museum said.
The interactive guide, which went live on Monday, is available for free at dealeyplaza.jfk.org in both English and Spanish.
According to the Sixth Floor Museum, staff began transitioning some of the core storytelling that was traditionally experienced inside the Museum to a virtual platform during the summer months when the Museum was closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The information presented in the guide goes as far back in time as the founding of Dallas by John Neely Bryan in 1841 and covers events in the Plaza through this summer's protests for social and racial justice.
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The guide is designed to be responsive across different device types, adapting to different screen sizes and orientations, the Museum said.
"The Museum is pleased to bring this project to life for the Dallas community," Nicola Longford, CEO of The Sixth Floor Museum, said. "Whether you have a little bit of time or a lot of time and whether you are in Dealey Plaza in person or taking advantage of this from afar, the guide will enlighten and educate you and your family about the fascinating history of Dealey Plaza and Dallas."
The guide consists of four components from which users can choose.
According to the Sixth Floor Museum, one component called "Friday, November 22, 1963" is a multimedia, narrated, 20-minute walking tour of the final moments of the presidential motorcade as it entered and proceeded through Dealey Plaza. It includes seven stops in the Plaza, beginning at the corner of Elm and Houston Streets and ending in front of the 50th anniversary monument in the pergola on the north side of Elm Street.
"Explore the Plaza" is an interactive map that offers a self-guided, self-paced exploration of 17 different points of historic interest around the Plaza. Stops on the tour range from the Kennedy Memorial to the east of the Plaza and Martyrs Park to the west, on the other side of the Triple Underpass.
"The Front Door of Dallas" is a slideshow tracing the history of the Dealey Plaza site from the founding of Dallas to the present day.
"Facing Tragedy" is also a slideshow that chronicles the ways Dallas has honored President Kennedy and memorialized the assassination and other tragic moments in the city's history, the Museum said.
According to the Sixth Floor Museum, the virtual experience was created with Storycrafter, a cloud-based platform for building digital stories created by Terra Incognita Productions.
"The Museum is committed to deeper engagement with our community constituents, and we are proud to share this latest example of our storytelling initiatives," Longford said. "In particular, it is vitally important that this history-based digital work is easily accessible to both English and Spanish speakers. Lastly, this project was developed with input from several community partners, including the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture; the City of Dallas Park and Recreation Department; the Dallas Parks Foundation; and Dallas Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation and we send them our deepest appreciation. We also gratefully acknowledge the use of archival resources from the Dallas Historical Society, the History and Archives Division of the Dallas Public Library, the Dallas Morning News and University of Texas at Arlington Libraries."
