A popular statue of Rocky that’s currently sited at the bottom of the stairs leading to the Philadelphia Art Museum is officially being relocated to the top of those flights.
There is technically a sculpture of Rocky Balboa, a fictional boxer played by Sylvester Stallone, at the top of the stairs now, but it is a second casting of the original at the bottom, which remains the more popular statue. It regularly draws tourists and locals alike, and has functioned as a Philadelphia icon.
The Philadelphia Art Commission voted on Wednesday to move that work at the bottom, saying it would make the sculpture more visible. “I think people come not because they’re told to—they come because it already belongs to them, and that kind of cultural legitimacy cannot be manufactured,” commissioner Rebecca Segall said, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “And by that measure, I believe it’s one of Philadelphia’s most meaningful monuments, and I believe we should just get him out of the bushes and put him up top.”
Creative Philadelphia, which oversees creative endeavors in Philadelphia, can now start moving the work, a project that is budgeted at between $150,000 and $250,000. Part of that cost will cover the creation of a new 14-foot-tall pedestal for the work.
Opinion appears to remain split on the statue itself, which not everyone loves. The Inquirer polled Philadelphians in September about where the sculpture should ultimately end up, and just 46 percent of respondents wanted it at the top of the stairs, suggesting that not everyone is pleased with the prospect of increased visibility.
Even some on the Art Commission seemed to nod to the division. “I don’t think that people see it as a work of art,” Pepón Osorio, one of the commission’s members, said. “People see it as an iconic structure.”
The Philadelphia Art Museum at least agrees with that second sentiment. The institution is currently organizing an exhibition about monuments centered around the Rocky sculpture that will open in April.
