The Philadelphia Art Museum is one of the world's great art museums, filled with thousands of priceless treasures. And yet for many visitors, the highlight of the day is posing with a movie statue and running up the museum steps. 

 

Philly has a scrappy underdog spirit, and the Rocky movies seem to capture that spirit perfectly.

 

So it was that Rocky III featured a scene in which a statue of Rocky was unveiled in front of the Art Museum. Sylvester Stallone commissioned an actual statue for the scene and later donated it to the City of Philadelphia, which placed it proudly (and appropriately) at the top of the museum steps. Life imitating art.

 

But not everyone was thrilled with that decision. Fine art lovers felt that a cheap movie prop outside the Art Museum stood in stark contrast to the great works housed inside. To make matters worse, the statue's engraved plaque contained a basic grammatical error - it paid tribute to Philadelphia and "it's" people. (How do you not proofread an engraved plaque?)

​

Shortly thereafter, the Rocky statue was demoted and found itself overlooking the steps in front of the Spectrum, where it remained from 1982 to 2006 - except for a brief return visit to the Art Museum in 1990 for the filming of Rocky V.

 

Finally, in 2006, the statue headed back to the Art Museum where it remains to this day - only at ground level and to the right of the steps.

 

Turns out Stallone had a replica casting of the Rocky statue that he graciously loaned to Philadelphia for RockyFest in 2024. That statue stood at the top of the Art Museum steps until early 2025 and got to preside over the Eagles Super Bowl celebration. (Meanwhile, the original Rocky statue remained in place near the bottom of the steps.)

​

Speaking of Rocky statues, did you know that there is also one (created by a different artist) standing in a town park in Serbia?

​

Well, that is enough Rocky lore for one day - almost. Frequent visitors to Pat's Steaks are no doubt aware of the stone tile which marks the exact spot where Sylvester Stallone stood in 1976 during the filming of the original Rocky.