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Yo, Adrian! I climbed the steps! Running those steps symbolizes the American d ream

By Mike Wilson, assistant managing editor/Newsfeatures
Published November 12, 2006

You remember the scene: Rocky Balboa, training for a shot at the title, runs through the streets of Philadelphia, flies up the steps of the city's Museum of Art and thrusts his arms to the sky in triumph.

It's the climatic scene in Sylvester Stallone's Oscar-winning 1976 film Rocky - a film moment so inspiring people feel they have to experience it for themselves. Just about every day, someone - a businessman, a high school kid, a newly married man and his groomsmen - climbs the Museum of Art steps and does the Rocky fist-pump.

Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Michael Vitez and photographer Tom Gralish spent a year at the steps, watching it happen. The result is Rocky Stories, a book about a movie moment and what it says about the American spirit.

Here's an excerpt from the introduction.

- - -

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, thirty 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 fiance from Lake Tahoe, two best friends who grew up in Oklahoma, a race car driver from Pennsylvania (he ran the steps for good luck). The story of Rocky inspired them, stirred them, and they felt they had to come here, like the movie hero, and share this literal and cinematic high.

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, was 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.

Apollo Creed, the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, is scheduled to defend his title in Philadelphia on New Year's Day in 1976, but his opponent drops out just six weeks before the fight because of an injury. Apollo decides to honor the nation's Bicentennial and the American spirit by giving an unknown fighter a shot at him and his title. He chooses Rocky. And why? Because of his nickname, "The Italian Stallion." Filled with self-doubt, Rocky at first declines the million-to-one shot - he resists the call, as movie heroes so often do - but finally he accepts. And beginning with his relationship with his manager, Mick (played by Burgess Meredith, who was also nominated for an Oscar), Rocky undergoes a remarkable transformation - as a man, a friend and a fighter.

Rocky's goal is not to win the fight, but just to go the distance, to last all fifteen rounds and prove to the world, and to himself, that he is not "just another bum from the neighborhood." Along the way, he wins the love of a woman and develops friendships without which he never could have succeeded. And he learns that, without this love and these friendships, success would have no meaning. Rocky overcomes the odds, redeems himself, and realizes the American Dream. The real glory for him is not in winning, but in striving to be his best.

No scene in Rocky is more symbolic, more powerful, or more enduring than the one at the art museum steps. Earlier in the film, Rocky sets out on a training run, but he is so out of shape that by the time he reaches the museum he can't even jog to the top of the steps. He has to walk. Near the end of the movie, on the eve of the big fight, he tries again. This time, though, he has changed. He has worked so hard, improved so much. He leaves his dreary row-house apartment, runs through the Italian Market, past the burning barrels of trash that merchants used to warm themselves, sprints along the docks, and finishes by racing up the museum steps at dawn, taking them three and four steps at a time, celebrating with a spirit and verve that still draws throngs to that very spot, in real life, three decades later. At the top, he spins and dances and thrusts his fists into the air, an action and gesture for which I have coined the verb to rocky. He isn't celebrating victory; this scene takes place before the fight. He is celebrating something more important - how far he has come in life. The steps become a symbol of his journey, his triumph - our triumph.

Most of the people who run the Rocky Steps understand that the movie, in its own kitschy, corny, classic way, represents what is great about America. An Everyman can make his dream come true; an underdog can triumph through hard work; and few things are possible or worthwhile in life without love and friendship. People want to believe the American Dream is still true, still possible, for themselves and for everyone. Actually, this desire transcends nationality. It is not just an American dream, but a universal one.

And because of a remarkable serendipity of architecture, history and cinema, the people can come to this spot and bring that dream to life. They don't have to have much in common with Rocky; they may not even especially like the movie. But the sense of joy, self-expression and hope that everyone feels as he or she celebrates on the steps is unmistakable and undeniable.

Word for Word is an occasional feature excerpting passages of interest from books, magazines, Web sites and other sources. The text may be edited for space but the original spelling, grammar and punctuation are unchanged.

The book

Rocky Stories

By Michael Vitez

Photographs by Tom Gralish

Paul Dry Books, 132 pages, $22.95

[Last modified November 11, 2006, 10:42:13]