In October of 2010, Jane Bryant auctioned off put up for auction the front door of Lee Harvey and Marina Oswald's one-time apartment at 604 Elsbeth Street in Oak Cliff. (The sale was halted by litigation, and the door was later stolen). The door itself, with glass that had once been punched out by Oswald during an argument with his wife, was a testament to their brief and tumultuous time there. It also foreshadowed the building's ultimate fate.
In recent weeks, as it became clear the city would prevail in its half-decade long effort to tear down the dilapidated apartments, the door was joined on the auction block by various relics: a bathtub; a toilet; some floorboards; cabinets; individual bricks.
Those are all that are left of the building, which the city razed this morning. Demolition crews rolled in just before 8:30 a.m. and made quick work of the structure, which didn't need a lot of help coming down. Onlookers snatched up bricks as souvenirs.
And with that, a piece of Dallas history was gone. It's a small piece -- the Oswalds only lived there for half a year and moved out eight months before the Kennedy assassination -- and an eyesore, but it's history nonetheless. Good thing the city got it out of the way so as not to draw attention away from "The 50th."
