It's Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. If you have gone to visit Philadelphia,

there is a really good chance that you've gone to the Philadelphia Museum of Art,

stared up at its long stairwell to the front door, and take it off running to the top,

where you have victoriously thrust your fist in the air and began singing the theme song,

to Rocky. There used to be a statue of the Rocky character right there at the top,

now it lives in a little plaza at the bottom of the steps, and millions of people a year come

to pose with this monument. But of course, it's not a monument. Not really, it's a movie prop,

or that's all it was originally supposed to be, at least. But after years and years of locals

gathering at the feet of Sylvester Stallone's likeness, the line between fiction and reality,

prop and monument, it's gotten blurry. Actually, a couple of the younger people on our own team

thought the whole Rocky story was about a real person. And you know, the thing is,

the grit of the Rocky character was modeled at least in part on a real Philadelphia boxer,

a real human being who does not have a world famous monument, and whose story is not remembered

in the same way as this fictional character. Paul Farber got curious about this odd set of facts

in his hometown, and he's made a whole podcast exploring how these transfigurations happened,

and what they tell us about monuments. The podcast is called The Statue, produced by our friends

over at Philadelphia's Public Radio Station, WHYY. Paul is the co-founder of an organization

called Monument Lab, which facilitates conversations about the past, present, and future of monuments

in our communities. He's also got a long relationship with our own executive producer,

Andre Robert Lee, who is a Philly native. Andre was a mentor for Paul Wayback in grade school,

and he shows up in Paul's podcast. So I talked to them both about this story.

Paul, thanks so much for joining us. It's so great to be here. Thank you for having me.

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