Rowhouse blocks under the Market Frankford elevated line, and the tunnel Rocky walks under on Kensington Avenue.
What Kensington looks like
The Market Frankford Line runs on a steel elevated structure above Kensington Avenue, throwing a moving shadow across the sidewalk. Somerset, Huntingdon, Berks and York-Dauphin stations sit along the same stretch. Each has its own sign bolted to the superstructure, with storefronts and steel roll gates lining the street underneath the tracks.
Two storey brick rowhouses run in long attached rows on the side streets off the avenue, plain brick fronts with little ornament between them. Around East Hagert and Jasper Streets, taller mill buildings break up the rowhouse blocks, five and six storeys of segmental arched windows over ground floor loading doors. Most of the mills date from the 1860s through the early 1900s.
rises over the rowhouses on East Cumberland Street, its red brick steeple visible above the roofline for several blocks. On Amber Street, a former mill building now houses , its ground floor windows barred and PHILADELPHIA BREWING CO. lettered across the upper storey.
The is a converted mill on East Hagert Street. Its arched windows match the mills nearby, and painted signage now covers the ground floor. The Free Library's McPherson Square branch sits at the corridor's north end near Indiana Avenue, a single storey classical building with a columned portico.
Shot in Kensington
The production filmed Rocky's tunnel walk under the el at Kensington and Tusculum, where he passes a group of singers on his way home. It also used as the exterior of his house. Creed later used Weikel Street and East Clearfield Street for Adonis's running scene, and on East Clearfield Street is where Rocky trains him.
Rocky, 1976
Rocky walks a dark tunnel under the elevated line here and passes a group of singers, on his way home. The scene plays on the real block, under the same steel structure the Market Frankford Line still runs on. Street View
The steel elevated train line over Broadway in Bushwick runs above the same kind of storefronts and old mill and warehouse buildings, and the block by block scale matches Kensington closely. Rowhouses sit a block or two off the tracks in both places. Bushwick's warehouses tend to run taller and its platform canopies are a different style, so a shot that includes a station sign gives it away. Try searching elevated train over storefronts now.
Ancoats' former brick cotton mills are close in scale and construction to Kensington's own carpet and textile buildings, several storeys of segmental arched windows over a loading level. The district has been through the same mix of vacancy and residential conversion. British brickwork runs a darker red and the window proportions are narrower, so a tight shot on one elevation holds the illusion better than a wide one. Try searching red brick former cotton mill now.
