99% Invisible - The Rocky Statue

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

How a movie prop became one of Philadelphia’s most beloved monuments, and sparked a decades-long fight over where it belonged. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 back. The training montage ends with him bounding up the 72 steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The camera's panning around him and he raises his fists up victoriously. This is producer Justin Kramer. 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 Holesman teaches art history and museum studies at Indiana University. She's written about Rocky's legacy in Philadelphia cultural history. And in Rocky 2,

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 glass, this chiseled glass. Ladiator 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 4 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. Ceylon 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 Schaumburg 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 3 film shoot, he wanted to donate the 1,800-pound statue to Philadelphia to stand permanently at the top of the museum steps. But almost as soon as Stallone announced his plans, there were haters, critics who didn't want the statue anywhere near the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Some refused to indulge what they saw as just an ego trip for Stallone.

Others said it was simply an ad for his films. But the strongest opposition came from the leadership at the museum. Their beef with the statue emerged from a much larger concern. At the time, Philly's influential art patrons and tastemakers were trying to figure out how to return Philly to its former glory as a hub of national culture. Philly was hot back in the day. I mean, like, way back in the day, like 1776 back, when Philadelphia was at the center of the nation's founding. But by the early 20th century, that shine had seriously faded. Philly looked more like your typical East Coast American city.

And by the time of the bicentennial, so 1976, Philadelphia had a reputation as a city that just couldn't get a break. There was a crumbling urban infrastructure. There was a lot of corruption in local politics. In the nostalgia stirred up by that bicentennial, the 1980s art crowd were dreaming of ways to remake Phil. as a grand cultural metropolis. They aspired for the city to again become,

as a famous architect once called it, the Athens of the Western world, a city that would boast one of the nation's premier art scenes. This art crowd had invested a lot in the city's preeminent museum. And they didn't think this nine-foot-tall boxer with shredded abs was going to push Philly toward that dream. They were inclined to tell Stallone, thanks for the gift, but we will decide where it goes.

By the way, it won't be anywhere near the museum. But that wasn't actually up to the museum. Instead, that decision fell to a couple of city commissions, which voted on the selection and placement of public art around the museum. One of those agencies was an eight-member group simply called the Art Commission. And before they even met to place their votes on where the statue could live, things weren't looking good for Rocky. The president of the commission was a wealthy art patron,

named F. Eugene Dixon, Jr. His friends called him Fitz. He'd invested a lot of money in Philly's art sector. And when he got word of Stallone's gift, he said it would be fine for the statute to stand temporarily on the steps while Stallone promoted Rocky Three. But in a letter to a colleague, he added, If, however, this statue is to be placed somewhere in the courtyard

on a permanent basis, I hope you are adjusting. That's not Fitz. That's right. Mark Bowden. He's tying the letter with best regards, as always, sincerely yours, fits. I just picture him in his mahogany-lined library out on the farm in Montgomery County. I'm just, like, who are they kidding? Mark is the author of numerous acclaimed and best-selling books, including Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo. At the time, he was a staff writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer's Sunday magazine, and he covered the Rocky Statue Gift. I was intrigued by the

sort of collision between what's popular and what's regarded as serious art. As Mark worked on the story, he discovered the museum crowd bristled even at the use of the term art when discussing the Rocky Statue. Their position? We're not even talking about really a work of art. We're talking about a movie prop. This raised a question for me. As art goes, could one deign to call the Rocky Statue an aesthetically good sculpture? Like, was it beautifully crafted? How did it stack up pound for pound against other famous sculptures. I brought my questions to Laura Halsman. Is it a good statue?

That's such a hard question to answer. What makes anything a good statue? She did her best to avoid it. I can say that it means something very important to a lot of people. Went to great lengths to preface her answer. I mean no offense to the people who worked really, really hard to produce it, maintain it, install it. Then ultimately gave in.

Yeah, okay, I will say, on aesthetic terms, the Rocky statue doesn't quite do it for me. He's kind of awkward looking. Other art historians and critics I spoke to weren't so diplomatic. One called it, quote, a pretty limp piece of sculpture, not a powerful work of art,

and a very superficial look at the human body. Another praised Rocky's armpit hair to the exclusion of every other detail in the statue. So it's not surprising that in the winter of 1980, the Art Commission voted six to two to reject the permanent placement of the statue on the museum steps. Sloan could put it there to film his movie, but after Rocky Three wrapped,

the commission would choose a different place to park his gift to the city. And if you're wondering, the remaining two votes were to bar the statue from the steps entirely. So the statue stood for a few days at the top of the museum steps while they filmed Rocky 3. Then it was packed up and shipped all the way to L.A., where some might say, a movie prop belongs. But the fight was far from over, because while some wealthy influential art patrons, some might call snobs, did not appreciate the statue, a lot of other Philadelphians did. To them, the idea of a local guy who fought his way to the top through pure grit and determination, no trust fund needed,

this was the real Philadelphia, working class Philadelphia. So at the same time Stallone's team was pressing the city to put the statue back in Philly, a similar push came from a local truck driver named Art Gorman. He was one of the statue's biggest champions. Here's Mark Bowden again. Art, you know, was just a huge enthusiast of the movie Rocky and hence Sylvester Stallone. He is a sort of assault of the earth, Philly, guy from a blue-collar neighborhood who feels like who are these snooty guardians of good taste

to be telling us what we should be able to see on the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum. We want it there. In late 1980, Gorman drafted a petition in support of bringing the statue from L.A. back to Philly permanently. I do think we should note it was written entirely in capital letters. Mark read me some of the petition. Rocky statues should be back in Philly, remember? Rocky won. When you and the kids went to the movie, what did they and yourself feel? Seeing Philly on the screen instead of New York or San Francisco,

pretty good, ha! Why don't you voice your opinion if you feel that the statue should be back in Philly? Gorman hit the streets, collecting thousands of signatures from regular Philadelphians. This impassioned 33-year-old, door-knocking around Philly, fighting to bring back to the the Rocky statue, drummed up a bunch of media coverage. Petitions are being collected around Philadelphia asking for the return of Rocky. It seems like the story gets told in a way that pits blue-collar Philadelphia against elitist high culture Philadelphia, this narrative of, you know, slabs versus snobs. Still, it was the snobs who got to vote on the matter, and the petition didn't change their basic stance.

Rocky 3 was about to come out in theaters, so the art commission said, fine, the statue could come back to the museum steps, but only for the premiere. As soon as that was over, Stallone's gift would have to be taken off the stairs. Rocky 3 opened in May 1982. Philly's celebration featuring the Rocky statue came and went. But the production company kind of just left it there, and the city won't pay to have it removed. So the museum has to take care of it. It was several months before movers finally came to haul the statue away. But when they got to the museum, they had one more obstacle to deal with.

The statue was bolted to the pavement with steel rods that went several feet into the ground. It was as if the movie producers meant for it to stay there forever. But the statue was finally pried loose and hauled five miles away to its new home in South Philly at the Spectrum Sports Arena where other statues of athletes stood. And to most, it seemed. like the fight was over. But, you know, it's Rocky. The fight over the statue kept going, partly because the movie franchise just kept going. Yep, big reveal, the Rocky series did not end up being a trilogy. There was another. Rocky 4 is one of the big hits of the holiday season. And another.

The Rocky production crew spent two months in Philadelphia filming Rocky 5. As he cranked out sequels, Stallone asked the Art Commission, repeatedly to move the statue from the spectrum to the museum for good. And each time, the commission said no. And that's how it went for 25 years. Rocky punched, the museum counterpunched. Then in 2006, Rocky got his best opportunity yet. John Street, Philly's mayor at the time,

had launched several projects to revitalize public spaces all over the city. So the topic of what public art would be displayed in those spaces had some traction. Meanwhile, Stallone was preparing to release Rocky Balboa, the first Rocky movie in 16 years. Philly usually hosted big Rocky premier parties, which helped promote the

movies and the city. At that point, the Rocky statue was in storage while the city built a new sports complex. This seemed like the perfect moment for it to reemerge as a piece of public art and to use it to celebrate the new film. That's when a lawyer named Jimmy Benz

decided to make a very important phone call. Jimmy was a friend of Sylvester Stallone. He appeared in one of the Rocky sequels and had a reputation as a Philly power broker. I got Jimmy on the phone and he told me how he asked Stallone if he wanted some help getting the statue to the museum. Stallone said, yeah. So Jimmy called up the mayor and told him that he, Jimmy, would like the statue back at the museum. Here's what he said. He said, you know, those people go crazy. Those people meaning the trustees of the museum. And I said to him, well, let me ask you a question. I said, do those people invite you over to their house on Sunday afternoon for cocktails?

And he laughed and he said, no. And I said, well, fuck them. And he said, okay, fuck him. With the mayor's support, the idea of placing the statue at the museum finally started gaining real momentum. Even the Philadelphia Museum of Art began to bend. The mayor's office was able to persuade the museum to consider Stallone's vision. The museum in the mayor's office began to hash out a potential compromise. The statue would move out of storage and back to the museum permanently.

However, not at the top of the steps, but at the bottom and a little to the side. At long last, after nearly a quarter century of petitioning, it seemed like Stallone was about to make his dream come true. The only hurdle left was the Art Commission, because they were the ones who still had the final vote on, where the statue would go. When this fight started, they were the statue haters. But this time, it seemed like they might play ball. So in May of 2006, the Philadelphia Art Commission announces that the statue might be relocated to the museum. And a whole additional wave of public debate comes out of that.

That debate involved not just commission members, but all sorts of gatekeepers who were weighing in on the statue's artistic merit. And where to put it? One city official named Harris Baum went on a local NPR Collins show to express his desire to keep the statue far away from the museum. He said it clashed with the commission's grand vision for the Benjamin Franklin Parkway where the museum sits. We're trying to develop the parkway to become a Shumseille, similar to what they have in Paris. And we want to develop more art around the art museum as such. but that is not a piece of art. But the response Baum got wasn't the same as it might have been back in the 1980s.

Now, listeners didn't want to get pulled into a debate about art. Baum was fighting an old fight. For the listeners who called in, it was about how Rocky represented them. Hi, Judy, go ahead, your radio times. You can put me at the top of the steps camp. That statue is an icon. It's an image of the blue collar spirit of our town. It illustrates what we are all about in Philadelphia.

Let me get Jack from Lansdale to join us. Hi, Jack, go ahead. You're on the air. I just want to say ideally I'd like to see the top of the steps, but a bunch of pompous powdered wigs aren't going to let that happen. Well, just one quick question. I mean, are you calling Harris Bomb Pompus? Yeah, absolutely.

The snobbery that he was that he's exuding earlier, it's just, it's insulting. Pardon me, sir, but maybe Philadelphia likes it where it is. Why do you get to decide what Philadelphia looks like? You can hear it. Philadelphia's had developed a loyalty to the statue. It's like they were defending a guy from their own neighborhood. On September 6, 2006, the Art Commission voted again on whether or not the Rocky statue could finally live beside the museum steps. And the minutes from that meeting reflect a clear shift in their thinking.

Quote, most members felt that the statue's iconic symbolism has won it a place in the city's identity. By a vote of 6 to 2, the Art Commission finally approved plans to install the Rocky Statue at the museum. The snobs had given in. Less than a week later, the city unveiled the statue in its new home at the base of the museum steps, and a little to the side. So this is a clip from KYW TV in Philly, and you hear the audience roar when the music swells and the curtain drops and an eight-and-a-half-foot bronze rocky is unveiled. Stallone walks up to the statue and kind of marvels at it in this boyish way. Like, how did this finally happen? He lifts his hand and pats the statue admiringly on its rock-hard abs.

I have to say, I found the whole thing oddly touching. I can't believe you've allowed me to come into your lives in such a way and have this incredible. This is actually mind-bending to me that this could happen. I asked Laura Halsman if she thinks this was the museum and the Art Commission finally embracing the Rocky statue after 26 years of resistance. I think it's an acceptance. By 2006, it doesn't just work as an advertisement for the Rocky movies. It works as an advertisement for Philadelphia. And Philadelphia's grit and resilience and Philadelphia's fame, not just from fine art, but also from pop culture. This acceptance marked a new era in the statue's life. What you start to see is an understanding that this is becoming a fixture in the city's landscape. It's emerging as a monument,

and it's being treated as that. Paul Farber directs Monument Lab, a nonprofit that studies and advises on monuments around the country. When it comes back to the art museum, to the base of the steps in 2006, I think it is seen more and more as an accepted monument in the city. The bureaucracy of the city is treating it as something that's going to stay. Once Rocky was installed, the city leaned fully into its status as a Philadelphia monument. Lights were added to illuminate the statue for night visitors. It was hoisted up onto a brand new foot and a half tall granite pedestal. This kind of publicly ratified monument is different from a statue that starts out as a monument. The art historian Alois Regal once talked about the distinction between what he called

deliberate monuments and unintentional ones. The deliberate monuments are the dudes on horses, sculptures made explicitly to commemorate a person or an event. An unintentional monument is an object that becomes important to us, not for the reasons it was originally made. It becomes meaningful because of how we, the viewers, come to see it, like an ordinary house that later becomes a landmark or a museum. The Rocky statue had undergone this transformation. It had transcended the squabbles about art that initially surrounded it and arrived as a full-on monument.

Up on its pedestal, looking over Philadelphia, it seemed like Rocky had at last found its permanent home. But then, about a decade into the statue's residence there, a tragedy more than 500 miles south of Philly would spark a reckoning about race and monuments around the country. And once again, Rocky was in the middle of a whole new controversy. More of that, after the break. By 2015, the Rocky statue had been standing beside the Philadelphia Museum of Art for nearly 10 years. It drew locals and tourists who posed and took pictures next to the bronze champ. It seemed like the statue could finally settle into its status as a true Philadelphia monument. But then, Rocky got swept up into a different fight.

It started in June 2015 when white supremacist Dylan Roof entered a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, and opened fire. Nine people were killed that day. Roof's plan was to start a race war. The mass shooting highlighted issues of white supremacist violence and domestic terrorism in the U.S. It also stirred up an ongoing conversation around racist symbols, especially monuments. Here's Paul Farber again from the Monument Lab. At that moment, there is a groundswell around rethinking the monuments that we have inherited and the symbols. We have a monument landscape that has elevated Confederates over civil rights.

Around the country, people began questioning flags and statues representing America's racist history. Eventually, that reckoning came to Philly. The spotlight fell on a few monuments in particular, including several Christopher Columbus statues, also a statue of former mayor Frank Rizzo, known for violent policing in black communities and racially inflammatory rhetoric. And when Paul's organization, Monument Lab, asked Philadelphians about what kinds of monuments they would build to reflect their city's visions and values, he heard questions about whether Rocky was a good monument for Philly. At that point, like, Rocky isn't in the spotlight in the heat of a reckoning about monuments,

but the murmurs are there. Some of those murmurs went like this. Rocky's cool, but Philly is a city with a real history of boxing. And unlike the fictional Italian stallion, most of those real boxers were black, including Joe Frazier, the one-time heavyweight champion and first to defeat Muhammad Ali in a fight that over 300 million people watch. Frazier becomes a kind of beloved hometown hero in Philadelphia. You know, you don't have Rocky Balboa without Joe Frasier.

Paul's referring to the fact the most famous parts of the training montage in the first Rocky movie, running up the museum's steps and punching raw meat, those were actually taken from Frazier's real workout routines. Fraser did get a statue in 2015, but for a lot of Philadelphians, the 12-foot bronze likeness fell short of a fair tribute to a real-life boxing legend, especially compared to the love Rocky it received. We heard that Joe Frazier wasn't getting his due, that there was an opportunity to do right by his legacy.

His image is not emblazoned on tour buses, and the steps that he ran up are called the Rocky steps. That imbalance and the question it raised around race were soon brought into even sharper focus. In the summer of 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, the ongoing fight over America's monuments heated up once again. Ordinary citizens toppled statues depicting historical figures associated with racist ideas. Five days after Floyd was killed, someone set fire to the Rizzo statue. In Marconi Plaza, groups of mostly white residents armed with clubs and guns surrounded a Columbus statue to guard it from being torn down.

As for Rocky, now that his statue was considered a monument, it would have to face the same scrutiny as these other statues. Here was a tribute to a fictional white movie character who many felt had stolen the spotlight from a real hometown black boxing champion. Surely that meant Rocky's days were numbered. But that's not how things played out. Philly's largest Black Lives Matter demonstrations kicked off every day.

day at the art museum steps. Thousands of protesters gathered right next to the Rocky statue. And instead of being torn down or moved somewhere else, Rocky was incorporated into the rallies. So like, where's Rocky in all of this? Someone has put a sign on Rocky that reads, no justice, no peace. Not only did Rocky get a role in the Black Lives Matter protests, but people started using him for other causes, putting all sorts of stuff. on his bronze body.

You have a face mask in the early days of the lockdown. You have a Ukrainian flag. When the Eagles' famed defensive end, Brandon Graham, retires, he puts his cleats on Rocky. Rocky became this container for the city's complicated

and sometimes contradictory emotions. Paul saw this on a day early in the pandemic when he looked at the line of people waiting to take pictures with the statue. So there's a black family and as they're posing for a photo, everyone holds up the black power fist of solidarity.

And three or four people later, there's like a group of white guys, I think they were in their early 20s, hold up a white power sign. So these two things are happening almost together, but not confrontationally? Yeah, that's right. The rocky statue could hold all of this.

Whether you liked it or hated it, thought it was beautiful or ugly, agreed with the person next to you in line, or found their views apporrent, The statue had become linked to the whole city. It was like a song everyone in Philly knew, and people could remix it in lots of ways so that it meant something just for them.

In 2020, the Frank Rizzo statue got moved into storage. The Columbus statue had a plywood box placed over it while the city decided what to do with it. But Rocky? His statue has only gotten more popular. Paul Farber guests curated a show about box. at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. And what did the exhibition feature?

None other than the statue that had been repeatedly kicked off its steps. Paul had moved it from the bottom of the steps to inside the museum for the show. Once that was over, Rocky moved again back outside. And this time, it was right where Stallone had always wanted it at the top of the museum steps, permanently, at least for now. Read the Philly Inquirer any week, and you'll see there's still deep disagreement about whether this is the right place for it. Some people think the statue has found its rightful home. Others hate that it clogs up the museum plaza, with vendors selling Rocky-related chotchkes. And others are just tired of talking about it.

In an additional move that some see as a tribute and others as a consolation prize, Joe Fraser's statue has been moved to Rocky's old spot. at the bottom of the museum steps and a little to the side. When this started, there was a sense that it was Rocky fighting to get to the top of the museum steps. And there were people against that. So, like, did Rocky win? I don't think that there is a simple winner. Let the never-ending Rocky series show us that what we're seeing right now is just another chapter in a story that will keep unfolding.

Monuments are not conclusions. They're not periods at the end of a sentence. Nothing is forever. No monument is permanent. Every champion throws a last punch. Even Rocky had to hang up his gloves eventually. It's true. Nothing in this world lasts forever.

Except maybe the sequels. 99% Invisible was reported this week by Justin Crayman, produced and edited by Christopher Johnson, Mixed by Martine Gonzalez, music by Swan Real and Paul Vitekiss. Fact-checking by Graham Hesia. Special thanks this week to Michael Vitez, David Brownlee, and Peter C. Sutton. Kathy 2 is our executive producer. Kirk Colestead is the digital director.

Delaney Hall is our senior editor. The rest of the team includes Chris Barube, Jason DeLeon, Emmett Fitzgerald, Vivian Lay, Lachamadon, Joe Rosenberg, Kelly Prime, Jacob Medina Gleason, Tallinn and Rain Stradley, and me, Roman Mars. The 99% of visible logo was created by Stephen Lawrence. We are part of the Sirius XM podcast family, now headquartered six blocks north, in the Pandora building, in beautiful, uptown, Oakland, California. You can find us on all the usual social media sites as well as our own Discord server. There's a link to that as well as every past episode of 99PI at 99PI.org.