February 18, 2026
Michaela Althouse/PhillyVoice
Crews remove the AMOR statue near Logan Square on Wednesday morning for cleaning and restoration.
The AMOR statue near Logan Square was removed Wednesday morning for cleaning, city officials said.
In the coming months, the piece will be repaired following fading and deterioration from weather and UV exposure. It will return to Sister Cities Park at 18th Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway by May 1.
Philadelphia Parks & Recreation partnered with the Heritage Conservation Collective to safely remove the piece. From here, Fine Finishes Painting Studio will strip it down and repaint it to restore its vibrancy and protect it going forward. The studio was approved by a foundation dedicated to restoring Robert Indiana's work.
Indiana created the 6-foot-tall sculpture, which spells the Spanish word for love in red block letters, in 1998. It was inspired by the artist's LOVE statue, which was installed in Philadelphia at nearby John F. Kennedy Plaza in 1976 and is made in a similar style. Indiana created the first LOVE images in 1964 in a series of rubbings he sent as Christmas cards.
The AMOR sculpture was installed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2015, ahead of Pope Francis' visit for the World Meeting of Families. Pope Francis convened a public mass on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway near the sculpture.
It was originally intended as a loan from the Morgan Art Foundation, however it gained a permanent spot in Sister Cities Park in 2016 and has remained in the city ever since.
