RARE- Texas School Book Depository roof and Hertz sign 5/1/78

[Vince Palamara]

 

[Lori Spencer]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but was just curious if anyone knows what became of the original Hertz sign? 
 

I’ve seen the giant Z on display at the 6th Floor Museum but where’s the rest of it? 🤷🏼‍♀️ 

[Ron Bulman]

Harold "Dry Hole" Byrd supposedly had the sixth floor window frame transported to his home bar/pool room I've read.  Maybe a letter from the sign too?

[Cory Santos]

25 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

Harold "Dry Hole" Byrd supposedly had the sixth floor window frame transported to his home bar/pool room I've read.  Maybe a letter from the sign too?

Ron is there any proof of that?   You mentioned that before.   

[Lori Spencer]

I’ve read that story about Byrd. Can’t remember the exact source, but the story circulated for years around Dallas that Byrd had the “Oswald window” removed and set it up as a sort of weird shrine in his home. He showed it off to many visitors at cocktail parties and it became kind of an urban legend in Big D. 

Edited December 12, 2022 by Lori Spencer
Fixed spelling error

[Robin Unger]

5 hours ago, Lori Spencer said:

Sorry to bump an old thread, but was just curious if anyone knows what became of the original Hertz sign? 
 

I’ve seen the giant Z on display at the 6th Floor Museum but where’s the rest of it? 🤷🏼‍♀️ 

https://emuseum.jfk.org/objects/33284/hertz-sign

[Matthew Koch]

9 hours ago, Cory Santos said:

Ron is there any proof of that?   You mentioned that before.   

When I investigated this years ago, I came away with the impression it was true. I based this off of the fact that there was a civil lawsuit filed against Byrd over the window. I bought a copy of his auto biography and in it there is a picture of Byrd in his "Trophy Room" and behind him on the wall are heads and skins of animals and on that wall looks to be the window (It is far away but looks like that's what it is) 

 

[Guest]

Byrd in front of the window at his home :

Edited December 15, 2022 by Jean Paul Ceulemans
Pict./doc removed to save attachment space

[Vince Palamara]

 

 

[Guest]

Adding these just to document the topic, for those that want to keep a file on it.

I haven't found anything yet on the Hertz sign, but I'll keep looking

On the window, from the Oct. 24, 2013 auction by iCollector.com, description (quote) : 

"The controversial and extremely historically important sixth-floor corner window from the Texas School Book Depository, originally removed six weeks after Kennedy's assassination by the building's owner, Colonel D. Harold Byrd. Recognizing the value of the window as a historical curiosity, Byrd instructed an employee named Buddy McCool to remove and replace it, according to a deposition and video testimony by McCool. He then hung it in the banquet room of his Vassar Street mansion, displayed beside other artifacts and mementos from his career, until his death in 1986. Byrd's son, Caruth Byrd, inherited the window and in 1995 loaned it to Dallas’s Sixth Floor Museum for display to the public, where it remained until 2007. The window is dark green on what was the interior and off-white on the exterior, with paint original to the time of the assassination. Beautifully presented in a custom display case." 

Added are the letters of the loan to the 6th floor museum.

 

 

 

Edited December 15, 2022 by Jean Paul Ceulemans
Pict/doc removed to save attachment space

[Guest]

"The Hertz advertisement was installed in December 1959 and removed in May 1979. After Dallas County purchased the Texas School Book Depository building in 1978, county engineers determined that the large sign was threatening the building's structural integrity."   Now, according some the Hertz sign has been repaired and treated for preservation when it was in storage.

There was an article on the Dallas Observer blog (2012/03), but I can't get to it, not sure it's still active.  Perhaps someone here can retrieve that article ?  

The original shortened link to that post was :

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unf...hool_depository_sign_then_hangs_it_inside.php

The full link was : 

https://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2012/03/sixth_floor_museum_restores_original_texas_school_depository_sign_then_hangs_it_inside.php

The link Robin Unger provided is indeed probably the most recent information on the sign https://emuseum.jfk.org/objects/33284/hertz-sign

Thanks Robin

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by Jean Paul Ceulemans

[Cory Santos]

2 hours ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

Adding these just to document the topic, for those that want to keep a file on it.

I haven't found anything yet on the Hertz sign, but I'll keep looking

On the window, from the Oct. 24, 2013 auction by iCollector.com, description (quote) : 

"The controversial and extremely historically important sixth-floor corner window from the Texas School Book Depository, originally removed six weeks after Kennedy's assassination by the building's owner, Colonel D. Harold Byrd. Recognizing the value of the window as a historical curiosity, Byrd instructed an employee named Buddy McCool to remove and replace it, according to a deposition and video testimony by McCool. He then hung it in the banquet room of his Vassar Street mansion, displayed beside other artifacts and mementos from his career, until his death in 1986. Byrd's son, Caruth Byrd, inherited the window and in 1995 loaned it to Dallas’s Sixth Floor Museum for display to the public, where it remained until 2007. The window is dark green on what was the interior and off-white on the exterior, with paint original to the time of the assassination. Beautifully presented in a custom display case." 

Added are the letters of the loan to the 6th floor museum.

 

Wow.  Thank you.  Amazing.  Someone with a Ph.D. incorrectly used “insure” instead of “ensure”.  SMH.  

[Guest]

Hi

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette

[Ron Bulman]

Cory is right.  The window was discussed here on the forum before, at least 3-4-5 years ago.  I haven't yet found an article that I did back then which confirms what I'm about to say.

First, I did come across the same info Jean Paul found but there is a little more to it.  The window was put up for auction in October 2013.

Sixth Floor Window of the Texas Book Depository (icollector.com)  

The second page of the two Jean Paul posted above does note when it was on loan to the Sixth Floor Museum, "Insurance per lender: $200,000".  The letter also mentions an enclosed Washington Post article about the window which I've not looked for specifically yet.

What I remember reading is that either D H Byrds son Caruth took it back from the museum, they chose not to display it any longer and returned it to him, or, after he passed in 2010 his estate took it back and put it up for auction in 2013 (per the above link).

The article I can't find was about an attorney in a small town in east Texas who bought it.  He had renovated an old house I believe just off or on the edge of the town square for his office.  He put the window on display inside the entrance as a conversation piece.  There was a picture of it inside his office entrance or waiting room as well as one of the house itself.  I can't for the life of me remember the name of the town though, which frustrates me.  So, I'll look a little more.

[Ron Bulman]

Well, this is not what I'm looking for.  But it's more than I ever thought of knowing about the window's, yes plural.  Read the third post by Bernice Moore.  Then near the end of the page the bidding on e-bay gets up to $3,000,000, then falls through.