Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

 We should look at the child on the fire escape in Altgens4, who is top center in the middle photo. I say "child" because I don't know if it's a boy or a girl. Is it a boy in shorts or a girl in a skirt? It definitely is a child and not an adult because you can see the adults on the sidewalk below who are so much larger.

But, what is he or she doing there? The Dal-Tex building was an office building not a residential apartment house. And where were the kid's parents? Why is there a child alone on a dangerous fire escape?

I put the other fire escape next to it to demonstrate how wacky the fire escapes are in Altgens4 and Altgens6. Notice on the left that the fire escape only went to the 2nd floor. Below that, there was a drop-down ladder that had to be released. The idea was to avoid having an obstruction on the sidewalk and to avoid providing access to the building from the sidewalk. Fire escapes were for going down, not for going up. If criminals could access a building from a fire escape, that could mean peril.

But, don't ask me to explain the weird contraptions that we see in Altgens4 and Altgens6. They are just more weird JFK assassination photographic shit.

You see the drainage gutter on the right side of Altgens4. It's in Altgens6 too, but on the other side of the window with the girls, which is completely missing from Altgens4.

As you reflect on why a young black chlid would be perched alone on the fire escape of the Dal-Tex building, read this overview of the building in 1963. I don't know how strictly accurate it is, but you'll get the idea that it was no place for kids, let alone a lone kid on a fire escape. "In 1963, the Dal-Tex Building in Dallas, Texas, housed various companies, most notably the Dallas Textile Company, hence its name. The building was also a center for the textile business in Dallas. Additionally, the KIngman Texas Implement Company used the building as a warehouse. Abraham Zapruder's Jennifer Junior clothing manufacturing company occupied the 4th and 5th floors."