Why you should experience the Rocky Statue at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The Rocky Statue at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is one of the most recognizable monuments in America, a larger-than-life symbol of perseverance, pride, and the city’s unbreakable spirit.
Created for Rocky III in 1982, the bronze sculpture of Sylvester Stallone’s iconic underdog stands with his arms triumphantly raised, facing the city he inspired. Standing before it feels less like visiting a movie prop and more like meeting a folk hero, a testament to the power of determination over circumstance. The statue’s muscular stance, captured mid-victory, channels the emotion of the film’s legendary training scenes and the collective energy of every visitor who’s ever run those famous steps. It embodies Philadelphia’s heartbeat: tough, scrappy, and endlessly hopeful.
What you didn’t know about the Rocky Statue.
The Rocky Statue began as art imitating life, and became life imitating art.
Commissioned by Stallone from sculptor A. Thomas Schomberg, the eight-foot bronze figure was originally installed atop the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s steps during filming for Rocky III. After the movie’s release, debate erupted over whether it belonged at the museum or at a sports venue. For years it moved between the art world and the athletic one, spending time at the Spectrum arena before returning permanently to the base of the museum’s steps in 2006. Its presence has transformed the site into a modern-day shrine, not to a real boxer, but to the universal idea of triumph through struggle. The statue’s raised fists mirror not just Rocky’s victory, but the pride of the city itself, especially in neighborhoods where hard work and resilience are a way of life. Few visitors realize that a second cast of the statue exists in Los Angeles, but only in Philadelphia does it carry the charge of authenticity, where fiction and faith became inseparable.
How to fold the Rocky Statue into your trip.
When visiting Philadelphia, make the Rocky Statue your starting line for the full experience.
You’ll find it at the base of the Rocky Steps, surrounded by a semicircle of cheering visitors and camera flashes. Visit early in the morning if you want the statue to yourself, the bronze catches the sunrise beautifully, glowing with a warm, copper tone. Trace your fingers along the weathered surface, polished by millions of hands over the years, and take a moment to look upward toward the steps: your challenge awaits. Run or walk to the top, then turn around and look back, the statue framed below, the skyline stretching beyond. Afterward, head inside the Philadelphia Museum of Art to explore masterpieces that speak to a different kind of endurance, that of creativity and culture. The Rocky Statue may not commemorate a real fighter, but it honors something just as real: the fight in all of us to keep climbing.
Hear it from the Foresyte community.
“I once saw a guy run up, trip on the last stair, then still raise his fists like a champ and the crowd actually cheered. That’s Philly energy.”
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