[blockquote]Lust found in the backdrop of an iconic city. Love found in the finger prints of the person holding the lock and key to your heart.[/blockquote]

 

Originated in ink came an international fad of public lockdowns for love. The trend?: Grab your lover, personalize a padlock, hook it to a tourist spot with a fence, and toss its key into the waters below. First experienced through fictional characters in Frederico Moccia’s Ho Voglia di Te (I Want You), the act is derived from those romantic at heart. The tradition, experiencing something of a chain reaction, is latching on to cities around the world. From Moscow to Rome, cities are filled with fences, bridges, and poles adorned with love padlocks.

Welcome to our home roots, Brooklyn, NY. Here, locks of love overflow the iconic Brooklyn Bridge, some professionally engraved and others scratched into with pen. The amount of love lockdowns in this area is monumental thanks to the overflow of daily tourism. Travelers flock to the bridge to leave their mark, sometimes with just a simple “I was here!”

To the eye of the cynical pedestrian, the mass collection of metal hanging off chain linked fences seems crowded and almost excessive. But in approaching these structures, look closer to find the angles in that persons handwriting, the patterns of rust further coating that couples bond. Each is unique in symbolizing a private experience between the souls that shared laughter, sadness, or the consuming love we attach to bridges to display a love that is concrete, that everyone can see.

 

Painted with a color of passion, the Old Red Bridge located in Kansas City, Missouri, promotes the fad as a way to bring attention to the newly restored landmark. Standing as a piece of art, many wish to decorate the structure to enhance its lesser known beauty.

 

With only a date inscribed, unknown padlocks hang against a cities backdrop and start the trend in smaller areas. Citizens that admire these structures wonder whose love adds to the glow of the bridge they pass over.

Flocking to local bridges are pedestrians and tourists attaching their affection to the People Purple Bridge (Missouri), the Colombia County Bridge (Georgia) and the Schenley Drive Bridge located in Pittsburg, PA.

 

Inscribed with dates, names, and the occasional “I love cake”, love locks celebrate the bond between our memories with others and the places we wish to keep in our hearts. Stories of couples kneeling on love lock bridges begin with a proposal and end in marriage. Anniversaries, weddings, graduations, road trips… any occasion can be celebrated and engraved into the love locks permanently harmonizing chain linked fences. Tourists on honeymoon brand a vacation spot as their city of love while mourners materialize their loss for someone they wish could’ve stayed as indestructible as metal padlocks.

Make Love, metal hearts.