PORTLAND, Maine — The Bandit is dead. Long live the Bandit.
Despite the death last year of the city’s long-secret Valentine, Kevin Fahrman, who organized the annual effort to paper downtown storefronts and buildings with red hearts every Feb. 14, it happened again.
Love, it seems, is that strong.
By 1 a.m. Wednesday, hundreds of red, paper hearts lined Congress Street, from Longfellow Square to Munjoy Hill. The Old Port was likewise festooned. One enormous heart hung high atop DiMillo’s floating restaurant at the end of Long Wharf.
Fahrman’s family revealed his role in the mysterious, yearly event after his death in April and said Fahrman assumed the role in 1979, taking over from the original Bandit, who began the tradition in 1976.
“It’s beautiful,” Sierra Fahrman, the Bandit’s daughter, said after sunrise on Wednesday. “It’s really special to see it continue.”
She said her father’s tradition of hanging hearts around the city might seem silly at first, but it’s well worth continuing.
“It’s an act of community love, a Valentine to the whole city, where nobody is excluded,” Sierra Fahrman said.
Recently, her family launched the Fahrman Foundation in Kevin Fahrman’s honor, asking people to “be a Kevin” and “make a difference” in their communities, committing selfless, loving acts of kindness. On its website, the foundation offered a downloadable version of the Bandit’s signature red heart.
It’s unclear if a new, official ring-leading Bandit organized this year’s heart distribution, or if the downtown love-themed display is the result of multiple individuals “Being a Kevin.”
Perhaps it’s both.
“It’s always been a group effort,” Sierra Fahrman said. “I’m sure a lot of his regular crew were out there.”
Around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, a man and woman moved west down Commercial Street, hanging paper hearts. The man had a manilla envelope full of crimson tickers, while the woman wielded pre-cut strips of masking tape.
They worked fast in the cold night air.
Though polite, they were tight-lipped on who or what kind of organization was behind their Valentine’s Day work.
“We’re not allowed to say,” the woman said, before moving down the street and vanishing in the shadows — just like a bandit.
