The Legacy of Love at the corner of Oak Lawn and Cedar Springs needs some repair work done
From staff reports
 
The Oak Lawn Committee is holding a fundraising event Nov. 2 in the Landmark Restaurant in the Warwick Melrose Hotel to benefit the endowment fund that pays for maintenance of and repairs to The Legacy of Love Monument, situated just outside the hotel at the intersection of Cedar Springs Road and Oak Lawn Avenue.
Individual tickets to the event are $100, and tables are $450. Tickets are available online at EventBrite.com (search for Celebrate a Landmark at the Landmark). For information call 214-284-0090 or email info@oaklawncommittee.org.
Over the last decade, explained Oak Lawn Committee member Michelle Honea, drunk drivers have crashed into the triangle, sometimes hitting the monument while other times destroying the landscaping. Vandals have attacked this visible symbol of the LGBT community in Dallas, requiring power washing and, most recently, signage was stolen.
Honea said that the Oak Lawn Committee commissioned the monument, raised the money to build it and has maintained it. But now, she added, the endowment fund created at the time it was built is depleted.
The Legacy of Love Monument was designed and built in 2006 and dedicated on Oct. 13 that year.
Located on a traffic triangle that had never been covered with anything but weeds, the monument and its surrounding landscape created a new entryway to the Cedar Springs strip.
The Oak Lawn Committee, formed in 1982 to preserve, protect and improve the quality of life in Oak Lawn, took possession of the neglected, ugly triangle-shaped patch of land in 2004 and commissioned the monument to be built there.
The monument reflects architectural features of buildings on the three other corners of Oak Lawn Avenue and Cedar Springs Road — Oak Lawn United Methodist Church, the Melrose Hotel and the Centrum — and is topped with a stylized disco ball as a nod to the bars along the street. Oak Lawn Committee raised $225,000 to design and build the monument and set money aside for its upkeep.
In addition, they continue to sell plaques that contribute to maintenance.
The gathering to dedicate the monument in October 2006 turned out to be just the first of many gatherings at the monument. It has been the site of protests, celebrations and mourning.
The largest gathering happened the day of the Pulse nightclub massacre when more than 1,000 people assembled at the new Resource Center building at Cedar Springs and Inwood Road and marched more than a mile down Cedar Springs to the monument.
After the U.S. Supreme court’s Windsor and Obergefell rulings on marriage equality, crowds gathered at the Legacy of Love Monument to celebrate. And when a lesbian couple was attacked in South Texas, leaving one dead and the other seriously injured, and after an LGBT community leader committed suicide, crowds gathered at the monument to mourn.