Vol. 176: Barbarians at the gate?

‘Rocky’ invades Philadelphia’s Art Museum

A movie prop? Or a work of art?

We Philadelphians are at each other’s throats again over an old cultural question: Has William Penn’s 17^th-Century urban experiment evolved into the patrician blueblood city of Thomas Eakins or the gritty blue-collar burg of Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky? Specifically, what should we do with that tacky Rocky statue that Stallone donated to us decades ago?

No doubt you recall Stallone’s original 1975 film, which was an urban work of art in its own way: the story of a hopeless lowlife South Philadelphia clubhouse boxer who, through an incredible fluke, gets a chance to fight the world’s heavyweight champion and, to the surprise of everyone, acquits himself respectably.

No film has captured so well the profound psychological distance that separates South Philadelphia from the glittering city of the Bicentennial tourist ads. For more than half the film, we see nothing but the squalid back alleys and bars of Rocky’s neighborhood. Not until Rocky goes into training for his title fight do we see him jogging around Philadelphia’s ornate Second Empire-style City Hall, through beautiful Fairmount Park, and along the Ben Franklin Parkway (modeled after the Champs-Élysées in Paris) to the Eakins Oval and the awesome Philadelphia Museum of Art, whose imposing exterior announces (if you didn’t already know) that this is one of the world’s great art institutions. (In the size of its holdings, the PMA is America’s third largest art museum, trailing only the Metropolitan in New York and the National Gallery in Washington.)

Shades of Rizzo

So when Rocky jogs up the steps of the Art Museum and waves his arms triumphantly toward the Parkway, we can suddenly understand why thousands of blue-collar Philadelphia whites worshipped the high school dropout mayor, Frank Rizzo— and why, by extension, 77 million Americans went belly-up in 2024 for a snake oil salesman like Donald Trump: In both cases, one man’s unlikely success story embodies a dream that his followers live vicariously through him.

Most of the six subsequent Rocky sequels featured a bare-chested bronze statue of the big guy, standing triumphantly at the top of those Art Museum steps. When Stallone finally tired of the Rocky franchise in 1990, he offered to donate the statue to Philadelphia in the hope it would be permanently installed in that location. This gesture— coming at a time when Philadelphia’s municipal government had posted four consecutive deficits, had been saddled with a junk credit rating, and had lost 40% of its tax base within the previous ten years, 24% of its jobs within the previous 20 years, and 20% of its population within the previous 30 years— was almost immediately embraced by Mayor John Street, City Council, the business community, and the editorial page of the Philadelphia Inquirer, which reasoned, “The museum represents one grand part of Philadelphia. People working hard to achieve rowhouse dreams is another piece. The two ought to be able to exist side-by-side.”

It was left to the Art Museum’s president, Robert Montgomery Scott— a quintessentially Old Philadelphia descendant of Scotts, Montgomerys, Ingersolls, and Binneys– to bring the city to its senses by quietly stating the obvious: The Rocky statue was merely a movie prop whose permanent presence on the Museum steps would debase the Museum and Philadelphia alike.

Joe Frazier and Malcolm Jenkins

The statue was subsequently installed outside the Spectrum in South Philadelphia— a sports venue (home of the 76ers and Flyers) that lacked the movie’s emotional message. It was briefly exhibited inside the Art Museum. Then in 2006— conveniently, just seven months after Bob Scott died— the Fairmount Park Commission approved a compromise: The Rocky statue would be moved again— not atop the Art Museum steps but just east of them. Here, for the past 20 years, masses of tourists have flocked to pose for selfies with the statue and to run up the Museum steps, just as their hero did.

(Did these tourists ever venture inside the Museum? Don’t ask.)

Now the statue has become the centerpiece of a new Art Museum exhibit, “Rising up Rocky and the Making of Monuments,” which traces more than two millennia of artists’ engagement with boxing and celebrity. The Art Museum has gone whole hog for this ploy, focusing not only on the fictitious Rocky but also the legacy of real Philadelphia boxers like Joe Frazier and Bernard Hopkins. A lavishly illustrated souvenir book, selling for $25, includes a contribution from the former Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcom Jenkins, who is neither an artist nor a boxer. Come this August, Rocky will be installed at the top of the Museum steps permanently.

‘Athens of America’

How do you feel about that? I’m of two minds.

On the one hand, no question, the money changers have invaded the temple. The Barbarians have breached the gates. While he lived, Bob Scott conveyed a consistent message: Philadelphia is not Hollywood, Disneyland, Las Vegas; or colonial Williamsburg. In an age of ersatz culture, Philadelphia is the real thing. The Art Museum was a refuge where lovers of genuine culture could escape pop culture for at least a few hours. No more, apparently.

On the other hand, cities aren’t carved in stone. They’re living organisms, constantly reinventing themselves.

Philadelphia, to be specific, was not only the world’s first planned city, but also the world’s only city founded and profoundly influenced by Quakers. In the 18^th Century, Philadelphia evolved first into a maritime waterfront commercial center and then into the birthplace of American democracy, as well as the nation’s capital. In the early 19^th Century, Philadelphia was famous as the cultural “Athens of America” and as the nation’s financial center.

‘Workshop of the World’

But after the Civil War, that illustrious heritage was largely discarded in favor of the more commercially alluring possibilities of a modern industrial city. By 1900, thanks to Philadelphia’s unique proximity to the industrial holy trinity of coal, iron, and railroads, William Penn’s “green country town” had once again reinvented itself, this time as “the workshop of the world,” a manufacturing behemoth whose diverse capabilities had scarcely been matched anywhere in the world before or since.

Yet at that time “Philadelphia,” for most people, meant a dour provincial factory city known mainly for its Liberty Bell and its repressive Sunday blue laws— the butt of vaudeville jokes (“I went to Philadelphia last week, but it was closed”). Nevertheless, in the 20^th Century, this city whose Quaker founders frowned on music had incubated an orchestra that was widely considered the world’s finest, not to mention the “Philly sound” of soul music. By the 21^st Century it had become a center of arts and culture, gourmet restaurants, upscale hotels, and gleaming office buildings.

The lesson? Cities invariably evolve, whether we like it or not. Those that welcome risks are the most likely to benefit. The storied golden age of ancient Athens was actually briefer than Philadelphia’s. Even the revered painter Thomas Eakins, let us remember, once outraged proper Philadelphians by his use of nude models of both sexes.

Rocky may be schlocky, but many people who’ve never seen the inside of a museum now come there because they’re inspired by his story of personal transformation. Who knows where that inspiration may take them, and us?

Enjoy Dan Rottenberg’s newest book, The Price We Paid: An Oral History of Penn’s Struggle to Join the Ivy League, 1950-55. You can also visit his website at www.danrottenberg.com