A re-creation of the original LOVE Park to open in Sweden this weekend. And yes, skateboarding is allowed.

A piece of Philadelphia skateboarding history will live on in Sweden when a re-creation of the old LOVE Park officially opens in Malmö this weekend.

Known as LOVE Malmö, it will serve as a “monument to skateboarding’s place in urban life,” city officials said in a statement. The result of a collaboration between skateboarding organizations Skate Philly and Skate Malmö, the park uses granite slabs, ledges, and other features saved from the iconic Philly original.

LOVE Malmö will open Saturday, with “legendary skate pros and rising stars from Philadelphia” on hand to skate, city officials said.

The project dates back years, with news breaking in 2017 that pieces of the original LOVE Park granite were being shipped to Sweden. Skate Malmö coordinator Gustav Edén told CBS3 at the time that “the skating world lost something” with LOVE Park’s 2016 renovation.

In 2019, Philly skateboarder and filmmaker Brian Panebianco spoke with Edén on a panel at a skateboarding conference known as Pushing Boarders, where Edén said he “cold-called” Philadelphia officials, asking to preserve pieces of LOVE Park, skateboarding culture outlet Jenkem magazine reports.

“If we can’t do it in Philadelphia and we can do it here, it’s better that it happens than that it doesn’t happen,” Edén said in 2019.

Constructed in the 1960s, LOVE Park had become a skateboarding mecca by the 1990s, appearing in numerous skateboarding videos and magazines, and even the hit 2000 video game Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. In 2001, it became an event location for the X Games, which featured a promo of pro skater Kerry Getz pulling a trick over then-Mayor John Street. The X Games returned to Philly in 2002, netting Philly a reported $80 million in revenue.

But in 2002, the city began enforcing a long-standing ban on skateboarding at the park, with fines of up to $300. City planner Ed Bacon, who codesigned the park, protested the ban that year, defiantly skateboarding across the park at 92 years old.

And while skateboarding continued to happen at LOVE Park after the ban, its draw was diminished. By 2016, LOVE Park as we knew it had begun to be demolished to make way for today’s remodeled version. Then-Mayor Jim Kenney temporarily lifted the ban on skating ahead of the 2016 demolition so skaters could give the space a proper send-off.

Officially opened in 2018, the present-day LOVE Park is much flatter than the original and features a noticeable lack of the skateable ledges and tiered steps that made the old version famous. In a review of the new LOVE Park for The Inquirer, architecture critic Inga Saffron called the space a “granite Sahara.”

But with the impending opening of LOVE Malmö, there appears to be a future for the once-great park. Philadelphians will just have to travel about 4,000 miles to see it.