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‘LOVE’ returns: Philadelphia park gets its sculpture back
By KRISTEN DE GROOT, Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — “LOVE” returned to Philadelphia on Tuesday, just in time for Valentine’s Day.
e famous 1976 Robert Indiana sculp- ture was brought back to its namesake downtown park on a atbed truck a er making a number of stops at parks and statues along the Benjamin Franklin Park- way before the reinstallation.
School children cheered and those gathered spontaneously sang the ght song for the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles as a forkli placed the sculpture atop a pedestal.
Susan Murphy had the day o from
work and came to the park to see the sculpture reinstalled. She played the Beat- les “All You Need is Love” on her iPhone and sang along with her new pal Caitlin Night, who swung by take photos of what she called “the symbol of our city.”
“ is is what we are known for, and it’s wonderful to have the ‘LOVE’ back,” Murphy said. “ e city seemed empty without it.”
e sculpture was temporarily installed at nearby City Hall in 2016 while Love Park was going through a renovation.
It was taken out of view a year ago for repairs ahead of the park’s reopening.
e perennial tourist attraction and engagement photo backdrop looks a bit
di erent. It’s been repainted to the original colors of red, green and purple that the artist originally used. At some point over the decades, the purple had been repainted blue.
Deborah Rickards, who teaches third grade at nearby Friends Select School, brought her class over to see the statue’s return.
“We consider the city to be part of our campus and all of these kids know the LOVE statue,” she said.
Student Caroline DeFalco said she thinks the statue is one of the city’s best. “I missed it,” she said. “It’s a really big
part of Philadelphia.”
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