LOVE Park
| Love Park JFK Plaza |
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LOVE Park with the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the distant background
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| Type | Urban park |
| Location | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Coordinates | 39°57′15″N 75°09′56″W / 39.954276°N 75.165651°WCoordinates: 39°57′15″N 75°09′56″W / 39.954276°N 75.165651°W |
| Area | 0.5 acres (0.20 ha) |
| Created | 1965 |
| Operated by | City Parks & Recreation |
| Status | Currently closed for renovations |
Love Park, officially known as John F. Kennedy Plaza, is a plaza located in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The park is nicknamed Love Park for its reproduction of Robert Indiana's Love sculpture which overlooks the plaza.
Love Park is the brainchild of former Philadelphia City Planner Edmund Bacon and architect Vincent G. Kling. The park is across from City Hall and was designed as a terminus for the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The park was built in 1965 and covers an underground parking garage. The main features of the plaza are curved granite steps and a single spout fountain added in 1969. What was once the city visitor center (built in 1960, before LOVE Park) was closed down for five years, but opened up in May 2006 as The Fairmount Park Welcome Center. The park was dedicated in 1967 as John F. Kennedy Plaza after President John F. Kennedy.
A "Love" sculpture, designed by Robert Indiana, was first placed in the plaza in 1976 as part of the United States' Bicentennial celebration. It was removed in 1978, but the sculpture was missed, and the chairman of Philadelphia Art Commission, Fitz Eugene Dixon Jr., bought the sculpture and permanently placed it in the plaza, in 1978.
Currently, Love Park is undergoing renovation and is closed to the public. The LOVE sculpture has been moved to nearby Dilworth Park temporarily.
Built at the base of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in 1960 by the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, the building actually predated the surrounding Love Park by five years. Informally known as the "flying saucer", it was designed by architect Roy Larson of Harbeson, Hough, Livingston & Larson as a futuristic celebration of postwar Philadelphia optimism, attracting visitors to the heart of Penn Center, one of America’s most ambitious experiments in urban renewal. The building survives today as one of the best and most intact examples of flamboyant midcentury modern architecture in Center City Philadelphia and has been determined eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. It is currently closed while being renovated with the rest of the plaza.
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