The Locks of Love

We started our tours of Portland Maine in May of 2012 on Commercial Street.

Our new tour business needed a home base in 2012 but we wanted to be mobile as well.  We would be using new technologies for taking credit cards and utilizing an online ticketing system.  This would give us the freedom to take reservations from anywhere in the city.  It would also keep our bills down by not requiring a phone line or or credit card machines.  As things turned out our tours of Portland Maine would not even need a store front.

We did need a place to load and unload our passengers though and seeing as there were not many available loading zones for tour companies in Portland the obvious choice was 180 Commercial St.  Here there is a 15 minute loading zone and also a great view of Long-wharf  and all of the beautiful yachts kept at DiMillo’s Marina.  So this seemed like the perfect starting and ending point for Portland Fire Engine Co. but we soon found out there was even more magic in this spot.  The Locks of Love soon appeared.

A few weeks into the season a sign appeared on the fence saying….Center for Creativity…”Locks of Love” as well as a handful of custom inscribed locks permanently bound to the fence.  Each lock had some one’s name or initials on them.  Our team here at Tours of Portland Maine with Portland Fire Engine Co. thought it was the coolest thing ever.  Soon the amount of looks grew and grew and grew and is still growing as did our tours of Portland.

Come down to 180 Commercial St. and see the Locks of Love for yourself and take a tour of Portland Maine with us……

Here is a link to some great images of this special fence and all of the Locks of Love.

Locks of Love Portland Maine

Keith Nuki – Tours of Portland Maine with Portland Lobster Co. – April 13, 2016

Here is an article about the fence written in June of 2015 in the Bangor Daily News

By William Hall, Posted June 09, 2015, at 10:54 a.m.
PORTLAND, Maine — Lovers, rejoice.

Keys to the heart: Love locks fall in France, remain in Portland
While the end of a famed French monument to l’amour last week made international headlines, Portland’s “love locks” fence seems secure.
At least for now.

On June 1, workers in Paris began to dismantle hundreds of thousands of padlocks, inscribed with lovers’ names and initials, that hung from an iron grillwork along the historic Pont des Arts bridge. Paris authorities claimed the “cadenas d’amour” were weighing the span down with an estimated 45 tons, endangering the structure and blocking panoramic views of the River Seine.
In Portland, more than 3,000 similar locks, weighing nearly 1 ton, according to an unscientific survey, hang from a chain-link fence along Commercial Street near Long Wharf. The fence overlooks a sewage and stormwater outflow into Portland Harbor, 10 feet below.
Paris will soon install Plexiglas covers to shield the grillwork while allowing pedestrians to glimpse the river.
Portland is shying from such steps. But Director of Public Services Mike Bobinsky said the city is keeping a close eye on its locks to make sure they don’t jeopardize the fence and create a safety hazard.
Bobinsky last week said he was following the story of the Paris bridge but did not feel Portland so far has to prohibit more padlocks. The city is responsible for the fence, he said, while the Portland Water District owns the overflow structure and its small gate.“We will continue to monitor the situation … we want the public to be safe,” Bobinsky said. “But to the extent there’s any strain on the fence, we’ll have to take appropriate steps. We don’t want anyone to go ‘overboard.’”
Facets of affection
Symbolizing the permanency of love, the locks come in all shapes and sizes. In Portland, most locks have been secured with keys, which traditionally are thrown away. But numerical combinations hold the secrets to other hearts.
Some locks are rusted; others gleam. Most carry inscriptions in ink, but many are engraved with elegant lettering.
A sculpted lion’s head guards the keyhole of a brass lock 4 inches wide. An industrial locking device with two thick bolts, each secured by a smaller padlock, commemorates the relationship of “Dee & Andy.”
There’s at least one bicycle lock, and many, many tiny luggage locks.
The beloved are as varied as their bolts. A new couple’s lock reads, “Mark loves Lisa, 2-14-15,” and another elates: “She said yes! Jenny & Drew, June 4, 2015.” Wishes to an older couple read, “Happy 30th anniversary, Tony and Renee.”
And there’s no gender-relationship barrier along this chain-link barrier. You’ll find “Emma & Courtney” remembered here, along with a large, silver-plated lock inscribed “Warren and Gordon, August 10, 2013, Portland, ME.”
Not all tell happy tales. Ann Mitchell of Boston recently placed a lock on the fence to honor her husband, Mike, a soldier who died in Afghanistan during 2011. Other locks pay tribute to long-gone parents, friends and loved ones.
“This is a memorial, a very public and very permanent way of remembering someone I love,” Mitchell said. “I guess maybe it’s an unusual memorial, but I think [Mike] would understand.”
Betty and Roger Williams were surprised last month to receive an engraved Master Lock in celebration of their 48th wedding anniversary. The couple hung the lock after carefully examining the fence.
“We tried to find one spot where we would always see it,” Betty said.
The couple, visiting Portland from Port St. Lucie, Florida, had learned of the love-locks phenomenon while traveling in China, Williams said. There, locks are strung along a chain that girds the Great Wall.
In fact, love locks are found throughout the world, often decorating famed public monuments — or defacing them, some critics claim.

Locks on the loose
From a dozen other Paris bridges to the Brooklyn Bridge, from Cologne to Canberra, from Boston, England, to Boston, Massachusetts, there seems to be no end to the power of love.
But in addition to Paris, cities such as New York, Toronto, Dublin and Florence, Italy, have removed or outlawed the locks, citing aesthetic and safety concerns.
An international protest group, No Love Locks, was formed in 2014 to halt the contagion of clasps in Paris and elsewhere. The group’s website, which has attracted nearly 200,000 visitors, claims “the historic bridges of Europe and around the world aren’t feeling the ‘love’ at all, nor are the citizens of the cities who are burdened with maintenance costs from a trend that has escalated out of control.”
The beginnings of the trend are unclear. Some claim the latches have adorned the Great Wall for centuries. Legend also holds that locks were fastened to a bridge in Serbia in memory of a couple separated by World War I.
Whatever their origin, love locks were appearing throughout Europe soon after 2000 and grew more popular when a 2006 Italian novel described them.
In Portland, the Commercial Street locks reportedly date to February 2013, when a group of friends attached a few to the fence after an evening in an Old Port bar. But there’s no way to be sure who added the first link to the chain-link.

Unlocking potential
Since then, the idea has caught on so much that the Maine Center for Creativity, a nonprofit think tank devoted to Portland’s “creative economy,” has begun promoting the locks as a form of public art.
The installation is unique, at least in the area.
City Hall spokeswoman Jessica Grondin said she’s unaware of any other love-lock locations in Portland. The Casco Bay, Martin’s Point and Veterans Memorial bridges are all lock-free. And the trend doesn’t appear to have spread to other Maine cities.
Last Saturday, sidewalk vendors Kate Clark and Keith Nuki understood the locks’ promotional power. Stationed next to the fence, Clark was selling her handcrafted jewelry, while Nuki offered his photography services to a steady stream of passers-by.
Tourists frequently pose near the fence. Clark, who has displayed her wares there for several years, said the spot also is the site of marriage proposals and two or three wedding portraits each summer.
Nuki also sells padlocks, painted by Clark in whimsical and romantic designs of nail polish. He estimates he sometimes sells a dozen locks a day, usually for $5 or $10 each.
“The locks make all the difference,” Clark said. “Everyone stops by, even if they don’t have one, just to see them.”
Neither Clark nor Nuki is eager for the city to un-lock the fence. And neither is Bobinsky.
At this point, he said, “we have not felt we have to prohibit the locks. … We understand their significance, and we’re trying to be respectful.”
Williams said she understands the predicament faced by officials in Paris.
“You don’t know if it’s right or wrong,” she said. Nevertheless, she’s optimistic about the future of her own love lock, adding, “It’s going to stay there.”