Reconditioned LOVE sculpture will return when JFK Plaza reopens
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Workmen raise the LOVE sculpture off its pedestal in Dilworth Park. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
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A workman guides the forklift that will disassemble the sculpture for transport. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
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Workmen struggle with stubborn bolts on the LOVE statue, which has not been disassembled for nine years. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
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A forklift removes the top half of the LOVE sculpture. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
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The sculpture is lifted over the barriers that protect Dilworth Park. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
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Workmen escort the sculpture onto 15th Street. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
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The sculpture is lowered onto a waiting flatbed truck. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
Robert Indiana’s LOVE statue is one of Philadelphia’s most photographed sculptures.
It is also the most frequently vandalized according to Margot Berg, public art director of the Office of Arts Culture and the Creative Economy.
Visitors scratch their initials into it, slap stickers on it, and climb on top of it, she said. So the sculpture was removed from its temporary home at Dilworth Park near City Hall for several months of much needed conservation.
The statue will be returned when the redesigned JFK Plaza (more popularly knows as LOVE Park) is completed, sometime this summer.
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