When I ask Philadelphians for their opinion, the last thing I expect is for them to agree with me. It’s just not the Philly way.

So imagine my surprise when I picked a fight with the proliferating Rocky statues around this city, included a poll in my online column to ask for readers’ opinions, and found a majority of those who voted agreed with me: The Rocky statue at the top of the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps that was supposed to be removed Dec. 31 (but still remains) has overstayed its welcome.

Fifty-seven readers emailed in response to my piece, which is quite a few (though not as many as responded to my recent hoagie/sub column), and a vast majority of those folks agreed with me too.

The original statue from Rocky III given to the city by Sylvester Stallone remains at the bottom of the Art Museum steps, where it’s been since 2006. The exact replica at the top of the steps, just a few hundred feet away, is Stallone’s personal casting of the statue, which he lent to the Art Museum to be displayed during the city’s first RockyFest, a monthlong series of events last December put on by the Philadelphia Visitor Center.

Word broke last month that the Philadelphia Department of Aviation also intends to buy the third and only other casting of the statue from its creator, A. Thomas Schomberg, to be displayed inside the Philadelphia International Airport.

‘Benjamin Franklin or Rocky???’

In my original column, I said that I’m OK with the Rocky statue remaining at the base of the Art Museum steps, where it’s been a popular tourist attraction for 19 years, but that we don’t need any more.

Other art museums don’t cling to decades-old pop culture references. The Art Institute of Chicago hasn’t erected a statue of Ferris Bueller, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art doesn’t have a sculpture of Thomas Crown at its front door.

Of the 1,208 people who took the poll, 559 people (47.5%) voted that “A Rocky statue doesn’t belong at the top of the staircase, but the one at the base of the steps should stay.”

Some readers cited Stallone’s political views as a reason to reassess the statues. Stallone is one of President Donald Trump’s most outspoken celebrity supporters and has called the president “the second George Washington.”

Why, if the Trump administration is making cuts to programs that endanger Philadelphia’s public art and is considering removing important exhibits about slavery at our city’s National Park Service sites, are leading institutions in our city’s art and tourism communities leaning more into an actor who ardently supports this administration?

I wrote my original column because nobody from the Art Museum, city, or the Philadelphia Visitor Center would tell me why the statue at the top of the steps is still there or when it will be removed.

“Refusing to answer or even acknowledge a reporter’s questions makes me wonder if what the Art Museum and the city are hiding is worse than what I’m imagining,” Jacques Gordon of Devon said via email.

Debbi Kelly Van Cleave of Woodstown, N.J., wrote to me to and said she used to like Stallone.

“Now I hate him. He is supporting a man who hates Philly and everyone in it,” she said. “If I see his statue, I’m going to take a picture in front of it with my middle finger up.”

Of course, there were some readers who wanted to give me the middle finger, too.

“With that blank stare and your opinions, I am diagnosing you with TDS [Trump Derangement Syndrome]. Who cares what you think? Are you from Philly? You sound like a Lib from New England. Why don’t you leave the statue alone and keep your Liberal ideology to yourself. The Rocky movie was truly an inspiration,” wrote one reader from South Philly, who shockingly declined to let me use his name in print when I asked.

But Rocky/Stallone fan Cosmo DeNicola, a Port Richmond native now living in Bryn Mawr, was happy to put his name behind his words.

“Rocky is more significant to Philadelphians than anyone dead or alive in Philadelphia’s history. Anyone and everyone …. walk the street … Benjamin Franklin or Rocky??? No comparison,” he said via email.

‘In the past tense’

A couple of folks like Ralph Fishkin of Bala Cynwyd said we should separate the man from the myth.

“I’m not with you on the statue, because it’s about Rocky, not Stallone. That’s why it’s there. Stallone is a bum. Rocky is a Philly aspirational hero. I say this as a Democrat who will NEVER vote for a Republican. But we have to think in complex gray gradations not reflexively black or white, whether we are Democrats or Republicans,” Fishkin said via email.

Other readers were almost poetic with their responses, like Greg Pastore of Bella Vista, who wrote:

One is fine, two is dumb, three is absurd

Stallone gets no say, he doesn’t live here.

But the most powerful response I received was from Lewis Helfand of Narberth, who said Rocky is one of his favorite movies and he’s long been fan of Stallone because of how the film inspired him. Helfand said he’s always believed the statue deserves to be at the top of the Art Museum steps.

“But that’s now in the past tense,” he wrote. “We are long past the point of not being certain who Donald Trump is and what he’s trying to do. The King of Prussia Town Center was just raided the other day blocks from where I worked a restaurant job for years and a newly engaged 23-year-old with a valid work visa was abducted. …

“… I’m hoping the movie that I’ve turned to for comfort and inspiration for years isn’t ruined permanently for me,” Helfand said. “But … I’ve got to throw my few remaining dollars and support behind people that aren’t championing a dictator stripping away voting rights and civil rights and women’s rights and gay rights and trans rights and every other kind of right.”