The Rocky Statue
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What is the iconic Rocky scene that sparked the statue’s story?
This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. And this, of course, is the theme for one of the most epic training sequences of all time. It's from the 1976 movie Rocky, and it plays as the struggling boxer in Philadelphia, Rocky Balboa, builds his strength for the big fight by doing one-arm push-ups and using a giant slab of raw meat as a punching bag.
The training montage ends with him bounding up the 72 steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the cameras panning around him, and he raises his fists up victoriously. This is producer Justin Kraman. Until I rewatched the movie recently, I'd pretty much forgotten everything else about it. Like, this moment is my image of the film. Rocky jumping up and down in front of the museum, arms raised, all of Philly below him.
Rocky's run up the steps becomes this iconic moment. And pretty much immediately, people who run up the steps as part of their exercise routine in Philadelphia become associated with Rocky. And it becomes recognized as this fan practice where people are responding to the film and they're running up the steps.
Laura Holzman teaches art history and museum studies at Indiana University. She's written about Rocky's legacy in Philadelphia cultural history.
And in Rocky II, the movie acknowledges the prominence of this fan practice because he repeats the run up the steps. And this time, he's joined by a group of kids as he runs up the stairs.
Today, at the top of those iconic steps in front of the art museum stands an eight and a half foot tall statue of Rocky Balboa, a gift to the city of Philadelphia from the film star Sylvester Stallone. It's a bronze sculpture and it depicts Rocky dressed like a boxer in that same victorious stance.
Standing on a one and a half foot base, this chiseled gladiator towers over the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, a stretch of Philly that's home to some of the city's most famous museums and cultural sites. That location really highlights just how important the statue is in the city. Around four million people visit the Rocky statue every year, about the same as the Statue of Liberty.
When Stallone first gave the statue to Philly, this is exactly where he wanted it to live, at the top of the museum steps, fists high, looking over the city, just like the movie.
But it would be decades before this became the Rocky statue's permanent home. Because what started as a simple gesture of gratitude and possibly a bit of self-aggrandizement, soon became much more. The statue set off a 50-year battle about class, public space, and what it means for a single piece of art to represent an entire city. In the way that great boxers aren't born as indomitable fortresses of muscle, the Rocky statue began its life not as an important public sculpture, but a common movie prop. Stallone had the statue built in 1980. Originally, it was for a scene in Rocky III in which a fictional mayor, standing next to the statue at the top of the museum steps, dedicates it to the city of Philadelphia.
It is with tremendous honor that we present this memorial, which will stand always as a celebration to the indomitable spirit of man. Philadelphia salutes its favorite son, Rocky Balboa.
But instead of getting the art department to make this prop out of painted plastic and foam, Stallone paid $53,000 to an artist named A. Thomas Schomburg to cast the statue in bronze.
It is really significant that he chose to have this be made of fine art materials and not just stuff that would be thrown into the trash bin at the end of the film shoot.
Stallone once called Rocky a, quote, euphemism for the city of Philadelphia. Some have speculated that he had always wanted the statue to be a permanent piece of public art there.
Stallone went to high school in Philly, and because of his and the statue's connection to the city, he made an offer. He said that after the Rocky III film shoot, he wanted to donate the 1,800-pound statue to Philadelphia to stand permanently at the top of the museum's
steps. But almost as soon as Stallone announced his plans, there were haters.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the iconic Rocky scene that sparked the statue’s story?
0:01–5:20
2
Why did Sylvester Stallone commission a bronze Rocky statue and where did he want it placed?
5:20–8:47
3
How did the Philadelphia Art Commission initially react to the gift?
8:47–12:54
4
What role did grassroots petitions and blue‑collar supporters play in the fight over the statue’s location?
12:54–16:10
5
How was the statue finally relocated to the museum steps in 2006?
16:10–19:14
6
When did the Rocky statue become accepted as a city monument and what changes were made to its setting?
19:14–23:45
7
How did the 2020‑21 monument reckoning and Black Lives Matter protests affect Rocky’s status?
23:45–28:47
8
What are the current arguments for and against keeping the Rocky statue on the museum steps?
28:47–32:20