Joe Frazier statue moves to the base of the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Frazier’s statue had previously been at the South Philadelphia sports complex for more than 10 years.
“Smokin’” Joe Frazier is finally in his new home, just in time for the 250th birthday of the United States.
City officials, alongside Frazier’s family, friends, and fans, on Monday unveiled the real-life heavyweight boxing champion’s statue at the base of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Intended to be the statue’s new location in perpetuity, the spot was occupied by a monument to fictional boxer Rocky Balboa for two decades.
“During this 250th celebration in the birthplace of democracy, we will forever remember that the city got right what it had gotten wrong for a long, long time,” Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said. “Now, Joe Frazier is attached, and connected to, and will permanently be here at our Philadelphia Museum of Art.”
Monday’s unveiling was the culmination of months of planning. The Philadelphia Art commission in February approved a plan to move the statue from by Creative Philadelphia, the city’s office for the creative sector. Chief cultural officer Valerie V. Gay said Monday’s event was something of a “soft launch” for the statue’s new home, as a granite base will be installed in the future, along with more formal interpretive panels.
“Today, we did not want to wait,” Gay said.
Frazier’s statue, after all, lived at the South Philadelphia sports complex for more than 10 years. Created by sculptor Stephen Layne, the statue was unveiled outside what is now Stateside Live! in 2015, four years after Frazier’s death in 2011 following a battle with liver cancer. Frazier, the undisputed heavyweight champion in 1970-1973, is probably best remembered for his three battles against Muhammad Ali in the 1970s.
The city’s statue of Rocky had called the base of the Art Museum’s famed steps home since 2006. The monuments’ moves are part of a larger shuffling of statues at the Art Museum that began in March, when the Rocky statue was moved inside the museum for the first time as part of the ongoing exhibition Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments.
That Rocky statue will be installed at the top of the Art Museum steps in the fall, when the statue of the Italian Stallion currently there will be returned to actor Sylvester Stallone’s private collection. Stallone, Parker said, was supportive of the Frazier statue’s new location.
Dozens of the boxer’s supporters attended on Monday, including Philadelphia boxer Bernard Hopkins who held world championships in two weight classes, promoter Joe Hand Jr., and Frazier’s daughter Jacqueline Frazier-Lyde. Frazier-Lyde, a retired boxer and current Municipal Court judge, said the the color of the shroud covering her father’s statue — green —was fitting.
“My mother’s favorite color was green, because we’re from the South and we love green, because it represents life,” she said. “My father, Joe Frazier, liked it because it was the color of money.”
To the end, the statue’s new location wasn’t the end of efforts in the boxer’s memory. Parker also announced plans for a capital campaign to restore the former Joe Frazier’s Gym on Broad Street above Glenwood Avenue in North Philadelphia. Now a discount furniture store, the building is a legendary location in Philadelphia boxing history, having served as a training location for not just Frazier but other famed fighters and community members.
Parker said plans were underway to establish a way to accept donations for that effort via the Philadelphia City Fund. The amount of funds targeted be raised was not immediately clear.
“It’s important to show the world who we are,” Gay said. “Joe Frazier was a humble underdog whose determination and grit inspires us all. What could be more [a] more Philadelphia story than that?”
