Philadelphia Museum of Art Steps

Seventy-two stone steps climb toward the east entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a grand neoclassical facade designed in the nineteen twenties to anchor the top of Fairmount hill. While the architects intended the wide staircase to evoke the monumental scale of ancient Greek temples, the climb gained a different identity in nineteen seventy-six. That year, the film Rocky featured the protagonist, Rocky Balboa, sprinting to the top of these stairs as part of a rigorous training sequence.