By John Bordsen
Unspecified
Friday morning in downtown Philadelphia, and suits with cell phones clog the 17th Street subway station.
Few board the eastbound Frankford line. The train glides through the darkness, sways north and enters harsh daylight as an elevated line.
Downtown is behind you; below are tar-topped roofs of increasingly desperate neighbourhoods.
Get off at Dauphin Street and walk down the steps and into the noisy shadows of Front Street, directly under the tracks.
Welcome to Kensington, home of the "Rocky" movies - including the upcoming Rocky Balboa, which filmed exteriors here a few weeks ago.
Little here has changed for the better since 1976, when America embraced Sylvester Stallone's improbable but uplifting tale of a down-and-out boxer who tries to defy the odds in the ring.
Sly's a millionaire now, and his Rocky character is the stuff of legend - especially in working-poor Kensington.
It remains Rocky's world. Still scrappy.
Beneath the "el" is a neighbourhood old even by Philly standards.
Colonial docks on the Delaware River provided the first residents. Shipyards fostered manufacturing, and there's been soot and sweat here since the 1700s: glassworks, sugar refineries. John B Stetson hats of cowboy and Mountie fame were manufactured in Kensington.
Kensington was always working class at best. The first Salvation Army post in the United States was established here in 1879. Individuals and industries that don't leave stay until they go down for the count.
There's a Depression look. This may be what urban America looked like before supermarkets and suburbs. The main thoroughfare - Front Street to where it angles off onto Kensington Avenue - is fully under the rumbling rail line.
It's one narrow, dingy shop after another, where marginal merchants start the day by unlocking rusty window mesh, dragging it screaming to the side. Then they roll bins of fruit, vegetables and cheap clothing, watches and electronics out to the shadowed sidewalk.
The row houses and small bungalows on side streets discharge few pedestrians and fewer customers. Business as usual.
This is where Sylvester Stallone and his crew came in late 1975 - an unlikely place for a young buck from the suburbs.
Powered by ambition to be a somebody, he knocked around the edge of the New York and Hollywood scenes, picking up money by knocking out screenplays that included characters he could play - street types whose diction stooped to his.
In early 1975, age 29, he saw long-shot heavyweight Chuck Wepner last 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali and got the idea for a picture about a bum of a boxer - "a man from the streets; a walking cliche of sorts," according to website http://www.sylvesterstallone.com.
All this character named Rocky Balboa has to do is get in shape, get into the ring and somehow beat this too-pompous champion of the world. A boxing Cinderella.
Stallone rejected offers to sell the quickly written work (he wanted to star in it himself) and eventually got a measly $US1 million ($A1.33 million) to make it with director John Avildsen.
The public went nuts over the cheaply-made Rocky, nominated for 10 Oscars and taking three.
Kensington was key part of that "nowhere": indoor shots were filmed on West Coast sets, but to save money, exteriors were done in Kensington.
Rocky's dumpy flat. The smelly gym where he plugs away. The nondescript two-storey building where Rocky's pal Paulie lived with mousy sister Adrian. The rundown pet store where Adrian sold "boids."
Other Philadelphia sites were seen onscreen, especially the steps of the Museum of Art that Rocky climbed as he got stronger.
For years, tourists have come to Kensington's mean streets because of Rocky.
This (northern) spring, Stallone and his megabudget crew were back, filming Rocky Balboa.
That's how little the streets here changed.
First stop on the "Rocky" tour is 2146 North Front Street, where Stallone paid Joe Marks $US700 ($A930) to borrow his pet shop for two days of shooting in 1975.
Sly didn't return to the shop for Rocky Balboa. The facade is heavily shuttered with rolldown metal plating. The glass door is fronted by a cell door secured with a pair of large locks; the store closed more than two years ago.
Kensington Avenue hits Front Street at an angle and carries the "el" northeast, to and beyond the Huntington and Somerset stops.
Between buildings, empty lots penned with cyclone fence and topped with concertina wire hold amazing things. In one is a sizable collection of old and gutted stoves. No sinks, no building materials; just stoves.
In Rocky, 2822 Rosehill Street in a row of duplexes, is where Adrian and Paulie lived. It appears to be vacant now.
At 2755-59 Kensington Avenue, look above one battered building to see a white plastic sheet printed with Rock Ministries. It is draped over a old yellow marquee where movable letters spell out FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT on one side ... but whose other side has been edited by a wag to read FIGHT THE GOOD.
It is an urban youth ministry where juveniles can get off the street after school for boxing lessons and religion.
"Rock Ministries" refers to Psalms 18:2 ("The Lord is my rock"), not Rocky Balboa. But the concept is gritty Americana: all boxers who attend 12 Thursday Bible Studies get a Rock Ministries T-shirt. ... 36 Bible Studies earns an equipment bag.
Around the block about 300m is the biggest "Rocky" site of all.
East Tusculum, a one-block side-street off Kensington, has facing rows of townhouses. The last one on the right, No 1818, is tidier than most - and much more famous.
"It's always looked like this because we keep it clean," says owner Eleanor O'Hey, who lives at 1806 and who rents 1818 to her brother and sister. They live in Rocky's house.
"They paid me $US50 ($A66.50) and were shooting there for four days that December. What was he like? Stallone? I didn't talk to him during the first movie. He was busy running around all the time doing this and doing that. Besides, I had no idea who he was."
O'Hey, 77, went on: "After the movie came out, things was completely different. People coming here all up and down the street. Someone tried to buy the storm door. That was stupid."
Stallone returned to Tusculum Street for Rocky II.
O'Hey: "The second time I got $US500 ($A665) because he had to have his picture taken here in a tux when Rocky was getting married." She has a framed photo of her and the tux-clad actor.
And in March?
"No raise. $US500 again. They were filming at night this time; it wasn't until 6am that they got done. Sly was busy - going back and forth, back and forth. But I shook hands with Paulie (actor Burt Young)."
Patricia Aird and her daughter Karen, who have lived across from the Rocky house for years, come outside to talk.
Two of Patricia's sons, Joey and Michael, aged eight and nine in 1975, were in one of the scenes; they were play-fighting. One now works at Temple University; the other is unemployed.
"Philadelphia is where the best fighters come out of," she says proudly.
Besides Rock Ministry, Kensington has Champ's gym at 22nd and Huntington, and the Front Street Gym at Frankford and Clearfield.
IF YOU GO:
Kensington is northeast of downtown Philadelphia. Get there on the eastbound Market-Frankford subway/el (info/schedules, http://www.septa.org).
Kensington stops include York-Daulphin, Huntington and Somerset.
The Greater Philadelphia Film Office offers a bus tour that visits more than 64 locations seen in various movies, including the "Rocky" series. Cost: $US35 ($A46.50). Details: call (from Australia 0011-1) 215-686-2668 or visit http://www.film.org
Info on visiting Philly: Greater Philadelphia Tourism, 800-537-7676; http://www.gophila.com.
MCT
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