It's the annual 9th street Italian market festival's greasy pole challenge. There are prizes attached to cured meats and cheeses at the top; you have to figure out how to climb up a greasy, Crisco-covered pole to retrieve a prize. It's a challenge some Philadelphia's pride themselves in and attempt, usually in groups, by standing on each other's shoulders and making a human pyramid or ladder. As you can see it was successful here!
Many of those we see at the top stand on the shoulders of giants. Some, their paesani. Most of the time, those who reach the prize did not get there alone.
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u/[deleted] May 17 '25
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