The 9th Street Italian Market is the oldest continuously operating outdoor urban market in the United States, running along South 9th Street from Washington Avenue to Wharton for over a century. The vendors are predominantly family-run Italian-American businesses — cheese shops, butchers, pasta makers, produce stands — alongside Vietnamese, Mexican, and other immigrant-owned shops that reflect the changing composition of the surrounding South Philadelphia neighborhood. Di Bruno Bros. has been selling cheese here since 1939; D'Angelo Brothers butchers have been cutting meat for nearly as long.
Rocky Balboa runs through this market in Rocky II, dodging vendors and drawing a crowd, and the film gave the market a cultural life that the neighborhood residents had never needed it to have. The cheesesteaks and hoagies from the delis along the strip are excellent and cheaper than their equivalents in tourist areas. Go on a Saturday morning when the vendors are all open and the foot traffic gives the block its proper energy. The Italian-American culture that built this market is still visible in the storefronts and family names above the doors, even as the neighborhood around it continues to change.