PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — After a couple of vandalism incidents, the Portal art installation in LOVE Park will be moved to another location. While it will stay in Philadelphia, the new site has yet to be announced.
The 8-foot-tall circular Portal arrived in Philadelphia in October, connecting Philly with other Portals in cities around the globe through 24-hour video streams. Since then, vandals stripped copper wiring from the installation in February. What’s more, the screen was damaged at some point, with holes left in the surface.
“Engineering has determined that the shattered protective screen was shattered from a rock against the screen,” said Joseph Callahan, director of Portals. “There is no definitive date on when that actually happened.”
Philadelphia is the only place in the world where a Portal needed to be relocated due to vandalism, he noted. “We’ve had zero issues globally, and we’ve had a fraction of a fraction of a percentage in Philadelphia.”
Callahan said the Philly Portal has been offline since January and is currently wrapped in a tarp near LOVE Park.
“I'm still uncovering what actually happened to it,” he said, “but we are committed to getting it back online as soon as possible because it was so well received by LOVE Park and the people of Philadelphia.”
However, the attraction will reopen at LOVE Park this week and likely stay open until it moves.
Callahan said he is committed to keeping the Portal in Philadelphia through the United States’ 250th birthday celebration, just in a different spot.
“There are currently three other locations that are now under consideration,” he said, adding one prospective location is indoors. “We will be making that announcement in seven to 10 days.”
Callahan and other organizers are remaining tight-lipped about the Portal’s next home, but he assured that it will be “very close” to Center City.