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Photograph of the TSBD second-floor lunch room
Photograph of the TSBD second-floor lunch room

Photograph of the TSBD second-floor lunch room

Object number2002.002.0062
Date11/22/1963
ClassificationsPhotographs
Photographer J. C. Day
Photographer Robert L. Studebaker
ObjectPhotograph (b&w)
Credit LineDallas Police Department photograph, R. W. "Rusty" Livingston Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
MediumPaper
Dimensions8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4 cm)
Collections
DescriptionBlack and white photographic print taken by the Dallas Police Crime Scene Search Unit of the second-floor lunch room of the Texas School Book Depository. Dallas Police officer Marrion Baker, accompanied by Depository Superintendent Roy Truly, encountered Lee Harvey Oswald walking from the doorway toward a soft drink machine at the right of the refrigerator. When Truly confirmed Oswald was an employee, the officer let him go. In a later reconstruction, investigators determined the encounter happened less than 90 seconds after the assassination and that Oswald could have easily reached the lunchroom from the sixth floor sniper's window. All crime scene photos taken inside the Texas School Book Depository that day were shot either by Detective Robert L. Studebaker or, in a few cases, the head of the Dallas Police Crime Scene Search Unit, Lt. J. C. "Carl" Day. R. W. "Rusty" Livingston, also an employee of the police crime lab, developed many of the images taken by Studebaker and Day. This collection of prints is a first-generation set of copies he kept for himself.
Curatorial Commentary
Careful observers who examine an enlargement of this crime scene photograph may notice the reflection of the second-floor lunch room's Coca-Cola machine in the decorative mirrored surface of the candy machine beside the doorway. - Stephen Fagin, Curator
Most or all of the countertops and bench seating seen in this crime scene photograph, as well as the art print barely visible on the extreme left of the image, was left behind when the Texas School Book Depository Company vacated the warehouse in 1970. After the building was purchased by Dallas County in 1977, renovations began to transform the structure into the new seat of local government. The second-floor lunchroom was dismantled, and the remaining furniture and fixtures were saved and are now part of the Museum's Collection. During initial development in the early 1980s, there were plans to recreate the lunchroom as part of The Sixth Floor exhibit. This changed when the focus of the exhibit's conclusion shifted from unanswered questions about the assassination to President Kennedy's lasting legacy. When the exhibit opened in 1989, the space once intended for the lunchroom reconstruction was The Legacy theater, which showed a short film, originally hosted by CBS News broadcaster Walter Cronkite, exploring the president's legacy. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator