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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Stallone on Rocky Stories I spent a lot of time in Philadelphia in the 1960s, and even though I worked along the waterfront area, I went to school at Lincoln High. That's why I used Fishtown for Rocky's home turf. And when I ran along the waterfront there, with the ship in the background, it's because I used to work down there. But the steps were like a magical area. It was like this intellectual bastion that I would only look at from afar. It almost seemed like another city, like the Acropolis. It was just some incredible monument. I thought, when I went back there, what would be interesting is what defined who Rocky is. We've seen him in squalor. He eventually runs from all this squalor, poverty, and he decides that the pinnacle of what will determine his success will be whether he is able to run up the steps of this magnificent structure—a structure where he really doesn't even understand what's inside, but only what it represents. It's like he's crossed over to a new dimension, a new status. And the first time he tries to go up there, obviously he fails, he's not qualified. I think what's burned into people's memories is that it wasn't so easy the first time. It required him to go back, rethink, train. And then finally, that is the last piece of the puzzle which will complete his transformation.  A Bronze plaque with Rocky's Converse All-Stars shoe prints are imbedded on top step at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where Gralish and Vitez spent a year capturing the stories of "Rocky runners," who come from all over the world to run up America's most famous steps – just as Sylvester Stallone did in the movie. What I remember about filming it is we didn't have the union's permission, so we had to steal the scene basically. Originally I wrote it with him trying to ascend the stairs carrying his dog, Butkus, who weighed about 120 pounds. After going up a flight and a half, I realized I would only be completing this with a terminal case of a hernia, so I abandoned that idea. The main thing was trying to get there very early in the morning to avoid any of the union observers that would have shut us down, and they did eventually. So it was sunrise—we got there before anybody knew we were there, ran up the steps with this experimental camera, and completed that journey. It was one of those things that just all fell into place. There was nothing pre-planned. There was no storyboarding. It was incredibly visceral. Why people run there thirty years later? I think Rocky has represented something that, when you train for Rocky, you basically train for yourself. Because we are underdogs. And there's very few things, iconic situations, that are accessible. You know, you can't borrow Superman's cape. You can't use the Jedi laser sword. But the steps are there. The steps are accessible. And standing up there, you kind of have a piece of the Rocky pie. You are part of what the whole myth is. I think it's something that will endure. And I'm just glad to have stumbled upon the idea and come up with Rocky, which is basically a euphemism for the city of Philadelphia. Sylvester Stallone
Philadelphia, 2006 A Year At The Steps One day not long ago, a taxicab pulled up to the curb in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A man hopped out and started running up the steps. A woman jumped out after him and began filming him. He sprinted to the top, turned to face the city below, and danced and pranced and thrust his fists into the air in celebration, just as if he were Sylvester Stallone in the film Rocky. The man then ran back down the steps, hugged his girl in jubilation, and together, arm-in-arm, they skipped – skipped – back to their taxi. I reached them just as the cab was pulling away. Where are you from? "England," said the man. How long have you wanted to do this? "All my life." This kind of thing happens all the time, every day of the year. From all over the Philadelphia region, the nation, and the world, people are drawn to these steps to run them as Rocky did. The movie premiered in 1976, 30 years ago, yet they still come – a high-school track team from Belfast, three busloads of professional wrestling fans from Australia, a college rower from Maine, a librarian and her fiancé from Lake Tahoe, two best friends who grew up in Oklahoma, a race car driver from Pennsylvania (he ran the steps for good luck). These are all people I met at the steps. The story of Rocky inspired them, stirred them, and they felt they had to come here, like their movie hero, and share this literal and cinematic high.  Rocky Stories: Tales of Love, Hope, and Happiness at America's Most Famous Steps – by Michael Vitez with photos by Tom Gralish. Published by Paul Dry Books, Inc. Mark Glazier, a welder from British Columbia, ran the steps with a tear in his eye. "Everybody knows what it is that brings you here," he told me. "It's the feeling, man. You come here for the feeling, that you can accomplish something, that anybody can accomplish anything they want with hard work. I've wanted to come here for many years." During the 20 years I have lived in the Philadelphia area, I have seen people from all over the world come here and run the steps. As they run, and when they reach the top of the museum steps, they all share a certain momentary joy. I wanted to capture this joy, explain it, celebrate it with stories and pictures, and share it. My decision to write this book was based on an intuition that I would find wonderful stories here. What I discovered, after spending a year at the steps, is even better than I had expected. The world, increasingly, is filled with chaos, sadness, madness, and hate. The "Rocky Steps" (as they have come to be known) offer an escape from that, if only for a few moments. Even better, they offer a tonic to the world's problems, a chance to celebrate hope. People come here and affirm their dreams. Rocky may have brought them here, but it is their own lives that they celebrate. Almost everyone who comes here knows the fictional story of Rocky Balboa, the boxer from Philadelphia's Fishtown neighborhood: Rocky is 30 years old, pretty much washed up as a fighter, scraping by as a tender-hearted leg-breaker for a loan shark. He sees beauty where no other man does, in the shy and homely Adrian (played by Talia Shire, in an Oscar-nominated performance), who works at the local pet shop. But in the beginning of the movie, he is going nowhere with her, just as with the rest of his life. Then he gets the call.
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