Rocky Steps
— — seventy-two steps and the song everyone hears at the top.
Not only on a wall.
“The east entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, looking down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway toward City Hall. Seventy-two stone steps run the climb a young boxer made famous in 1976. Tourists run them every hour of the day, sometimes with their hands in the air at the top, sometimes alone, sometimes a whole bachelor party. The bronze Rocky stands at the foot, to the right.
Rocky Steps, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Rocky Steps are the seventy-two stone risers at the east entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, designed by Horace Trumbauer's firm and finished in 1928 in Greek revival above the Fairmount waterworks. The steps face east down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway toward Logan Circle and Philadelphia City Hall. They became internationally known after the 1976 film Rocky, in which Sylvester Stallone's character finishes a training run by sprinting up them and raising his fists at the top. The museum sits on the site of an early municipal reservoir.
The steps are public and free at all hours; visitors do not need a museum ticket to climb them. The bronze Rocky statue, an eight-and-a-half-foot work by sculptor A. Thomas Schomberg first commissioned for Rocky III in 1982, stands at the foot of the steps to the north — moved there permanently in 2006 after years of debate over whether it belonged at a fine-arts institution. The east terrace at the top offers the long Parkway view toward City Hall, best photographed in early morning before the runners arrive.
The climb sees runs from every direction year-round, but the season tips it. Spring brings cherry blossom along the Parkway and the start of Philadelphia's tourist season. Summer evenings draw crowds for the Welcome America concerts on the Fourth of July, when the steps face the Parkway fireworks. Autumn is steady. In winter, snow on the limestone slows the run and quiets the photo line. The Philadelphia Marathon route passes near the steps each November, and the Broad Street Run finishes nearby in May.