LOVE Park 5.05

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.HistoryLove 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.