Editing LOVE Park (section)

== Cultural Significance ==

LOVE Park's cultural significance extends beyond its physical attributes to encompass meanings that different communities have attached to the space. For tourists, the LOVE sculpture represents Philadelphia's identity and provides a photo opportunity confirming their visit. For skateboarders, the park represents a lost golden age and ongoing debates about public space. For urban designers, the park's redesign represents contemporary approaches to plaza design and activation. These overlapping meanings make LOVE Park a contested space where different values and communities intersect.<ref name="hine"/>

The park's name—LOVE Park—itself represents a tension between official designation and popular usage. The city named the plaza for President Kennedy; popular usage named it for the sculpture. This naming demonstrates how public experience can override official designation, with the sculpture's presence defining the space more powerfully than any formal naming process. LOVE Park's identity derives from what it contains rather than what it was named, a relationship that the redesign maintained despite its comprehensive transformation of the physical space.<ref name="gallery"/>