Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
At long last, Rocky Balboa has come back home. Again.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s famed statue of the Italian Stallion was installed atop the Philadelphia Museum of Art<\/a>\u2019s iconic steps Wednesday. Its installation marks the most visible step yet in getting the fictional boxer\u2019s monument into what has been billed as its permanent place.<\/p>\n Creative Philadelphia, the city arts office behind the statue\u2019s move, said the monument was affixed to its pedestal at the top of the steps about 11:30 a.m. Additional cleanup work was slated to take place Thursday, and barricades around the statue were to be removed Friday, marking the installation\u2019s completion.<\/p>\n After that, no additional work is scheduled, the office said.<\/p>\n The statue\u2019s move, which officially began on Sept. 11<\/a>, caps a monthslong series of monumental moves at the Art Museum. Since 2006, it sat at the bottom of the institution\u2019s steps, and was then housed inside the museum for the exhibit \u201cRising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments\u201d<\/a> starting in March.<\/p>\n In June, officials installed a statue of real-life Philly boxing legend \u201cSmokin\u2019\u201d Joe Frazier<\/a> at the base of the steps, moving that piece from its formerly long-held home at the sports complex in South Philadelphia<\/a>.<\/p>\n All the while, another statue of Rocky sat at the top of the museum\u2019s steps, but that one will now be returned to actor Sylvester Stallone\u2019s private collection<\/a>.<\/p>\n The original statue, which Stallone commissioned for Rocky III, has long been a controversial piece of public art in the city. It arrived in town in 1981, and has since been moved about a half dozen times \u2014 including previous stints at the top of the steps.<\/p>\n Now, the statue stands about 14 feet back from the edge of the top step, adjacent to where Rocky\u2019s shoe prints are embedded into a walkway.<\/p>\n Last fall, an Inquirer survey found that 46% of respondents believed there should not be a Rocky statue at the top of the steps<\/a>. About 20% of respondents said there should not be a Rocky statue in the city\u2019s quiver of monuments at all. <\/p>\n That perspective has been present among Philadelphians since the statue arrived more than four decades ago<\/a>, when some local officials referred to it as \u201cunnecessarily strident.\u201d At least one Inquirer columnist called it a \u201cmonument to schlock, chutzpah, and mediocrity\u201d following its debut.<\/p>\n