This year’s Love Train celebrates marriage equality in Philly

All aboard! The Market-Frankford El turns into the Love Train on Sunday, February 8. The special tour, marking its five-year anniversary, takes a slow ride past the 50 Love Letter murals created through the Mural Arts Program. It’s a way to showcase the art that beautifies buildings in the city, but this year it’s something more. The event will feature the marriage of a same-sex Philadelphia couple, performed by the city’s first openly gay male judge.

The murals on Market Street from 45th to 63rd were created by artist Stephen Powers, a West Philly native who went from graffiti painter to established studio artist and Fulbright scholar, and his crew. “A Love Letter for You” boasts 50 artworks that collectively express a love letter from a guy to a girl, from an artist to his hometown, and from local residents to their neighborhood, West Philadelphia, according to organizers.

Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it doesn’t

One mural colorfully states “Your everafter is all I’m after.” Another makes eyes out of the o’s in “Look, look, look, look any way, as long as it’s at me.” Another features a larger-than-life Post-it note saying “Remember — sometimes it hurts, sometimes it doesn’t.” And one declares “Forever begins when you say yes.”

Neal Santos and Andrew Olson said yes to being with each other forever and will be married on the train by Common Pleas Court Judge Daniel J. Anders. The judge has been performing weddings for about seven years, but only since May in Pennsylvania, when marriage equality arrived in the Keystone state, he said. Since then, though, he has performed 70 ceremonies. This will be his first on a moving train. No matter where it takes place, though, each one is emotional: “Even with the ceremonies I do in my office, it’s a powerful moment.”

No boundaries

Anders is happy that marriage equality finally arrived here and hopes the domino effect continues around the country in the places where same-sex marriage hasn’t yet been recognized. “A marriage is a marriage,” he said. “I think love is love.”

Having seen the Love Letter murals, he thinks they’re a great backdrop for this one-of-a-kind same-sex marriage ceremony. “The love letter murals are symbolic of the fact that love is one of those essential truths that bind us together,” he said. “It knows no boundaries.”

Love Train 2015, billed as the final iteration of the tour, departs at noon on Sunday, Feb. 8. Guests will check in at the concourse of SEPTA’s Jefferson Station (formerly Market East) at 11:30am for a ride that will go until 1:30pm. Tickets are $35 per person, $60 per couple, and include a reception after the tour. For tickets and more information, click here or call 215-925-3633, ext. 16.

At right: Love Letter (one of 50 in a series) by Steve Powers. Photo by Adam Wallacavage for the Mural Arts Program.