The Rocky Steps

Apr 112012

If you visit Philadelphia (as many English teachers did last week for the TESOL conference), a ‘must do’ activity is to run up the 72 stone steps in front of the Art Museum.

Why?

Well, it’s a sort of ritual re-enactment of a classic scene from a ‘Rocky’ movie. For those who haven’t seen it, it’s about a downbeat boxer (Sylvester Stallone) who’s run to seed and given up on life. He decides to get back in the swing and get fit, so near the start we see him huffing and puffing when he tries to run up the steps. As he gets fitter, so it becomes easier.

It turned out to be a doddle for my friend and fellow Business English teacher, Evan Frendo too. Bravo Evan! You can see him in action here:

Some other stuff about the Rocky statue and steps:

You get a terrific view of the Bejamin Franklin Parkway and City Hall from the top of the steps – definitely worth the climb.
We’ve found the Art Museum steps are great place to make vox pop movies because people from all over the world come there, and they’re generally in a good mood and have time to talk to us.
The statue of Rocky is a big tourist attraction but its location has been a source of controversy. It was a prop in the movie Rocky III in which it was positioned at the top of the steps. Stallone donated to the city after the movie and some say he expected them to leave it where it was. But it was immediatly moved to the sports stadiums in the south of the city by the Philadelphia Art Commission, which didn’t consider it art. However this wasn’t good for tourism. After twenty years of wrangling, a compromise was reached and it’s now positioned at street level, to the right of the Art Museum steps.
There have been lots of parodies of the movie scene in ads and TV shows like the Simpsons.
The movie was made at a time when they’d just invented steadi-cams – cameras that you could carry and still keep shots relatively steady and smooth. Just as well with 72 steps, eh? The camera was invented by a Philadelphian cameraman called Garrett Brown.
Syllvester Stallone plays an Italian American from South Philly in the movie so he greets people with ‘yo’ and uses the plural form of ‘you’ -‘yous’. Many Philadelphians looks on him as one of their own, but actually he’s a New Yorker.

You can see the original movie scene with Rocky running up the Art Museums steps here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NubH5BDOaD8