This weekend, the South 9th Street Italian Market Festival returns to pack seven blocks of South Philly with live music, Italian cuisine and culture, and the grease pole climb competition.
The Albero Della Cuccagna, carried over from Italy, challenges teams to scale a 30-foot pole slathered in lard and snatch the prizes at the top, which nowadays includes cash, and vouchers to local shops and attractions.
Frankie Longo, a former champion and legend of the competition, will be watching eagerly from a new VIP area at the 9th and Montrose Piazza. He offered some tips for how to get the most out of the viewing experience.
When’s the best time to watch?
The pole climb is on both Saturday and Sunday, at 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. From Longo’s experience, Saturday’s climbers tend to be the tourists and new climbers, while Sunday has the “homers,” people from the neighborhood with some pole climbing experience.
“Saturday, you get your first timers hitting the pole; guys trying different methods, people who’ve never even climbed before just doing it because you’re in Philly,” Longo said. “Sunday’s a little bit more methodical.”
Longo said that the new climber’s inexperience shows in how quickly they rush the climb and their out-of-shape bodies quickly pay for it. Sunday’s groups are more likely to formulate and plan out the climb beforehand, drawing on past years’ attempts.
Where’s the best spot to watch it?
The area around the pole will be more fenced off than previous years, with the new VIP area next to it. If you don’t want to climb or shell out for a VIP table, Longo recommends staying on the back-end wall of Montrose Street, rather than South Street. Here, there will be less pressure to move along with the flow of the festival’s foot traffic.
He also urged patience with the festival staff and security. They’re just trying to keep the foot traffic flowing and everyone safe.
What to watch for?
Like most team sports, while everyone needs a baseline level of fitness, each individual’s build suits a specialized role on the team. Longo said in grease pole climbing, those roles especially show in the tiers. The base tier at the bottom comprises the big guys. The second tier has tall team members— ideally 6-foot-2, 6-foot-3 — who then prop up a third tier of smaller, stronger competitors.
“Fourth and up is your [on your] own, because by that time you’re right near the top,” Longo said. “Some people go at it by themselves and just shimmy up, others try to hold that position and climb up one final guy.”
Longo says one way to assess how a climb is going is to look at the people on the base and how much they’re moving. The more they are adjusting and trying to reset themselves, the worse it’s going.
“It’s like cooking a steak: Don’t [move it]. If you move it, it’s gonna kill the grilling process,” Longo said. “If the person at the bottom keeps moving and moving, he’s going to make it harder for him to adjust and balance. It’s going to make it almost impossible for the people standing on them to keep steady.”
The best way the base can help the next tier’s climb is by being a perfect statue, allowing for a still and stable frame to scramble up.
Another telltale sign that the climb is about to fail is when the middle tiers start to buckle
“It’s hard to fix the second and third tier, because you can’t reach up in the air to push him back on the pole,” Longo said.
Along with the people on the pole, it’s important to have others supporting beside it, helping push people up and throwing towels up to wipe the lard off the pole. Climbing equipment like harnesses and lanyard lines are prohibited, but strategically employing a towel around the pole as you climb and descend is fair game. It doesn’t get it all off, Longo said, but it can remove enough to get a tighter bond to the pole when you squeeze up on it.
Longo, now 54, hasn’t joined the climb in years (don’t ask him if he’s retired though), instead passing the torch onto his successors like his 19-year-old son, Frankie Jr., and fellow South Philly native and former champion Nick Cordisio.
“I can’t climb — I can, but it physically wears me down now the next day, and I’ve got work the next day,” Longo said. “But I always get that inclination to jump on the pole, I’m not going to lie to you. Last year, my wife looked at me and said, ‘will you stop.’”
Longo says that he’ll have to fight off the urge to join the climb and give his son the final push to the top this year, like he had to last year. He believes that it’s just a matter of time before Frankie Jr. is crowned champion as well though.
There’s not much room for showboating while climbing. Safety is a major priority, as demonstrated by the waivers and breathalyzer tests required for all climbers (who must be over 18).
Longo said that Frankie Jr. may try to climb up onto the wheel that holds the prizes if he reaches it though, emulating Longo’s victorious climb in 1997.
“It’s like the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree. It just landed at the foot of the fricking tree with him,” Longo said.
