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The Unger Report: Stairway to Fitness

Brian Unger, microphone in hand, tackles the 154 steps up a Santa Monica canyon wall.
Steve Proffitt, NPR /
Brian Unger, microphone in hand, tackles the 154 steps up a Santa Monica canyon wall.

There are plenty of famous stairways in America. There's the steps leading up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, featured in a scene from the first Rocky film. Washington, D.C., has the steps of the Lincoln Memorial -- and the spooky Georgetown stairway featured in the final, fatal scene of The Exorcist.

In Los Angeles, cracked Day to Day reporter Brian Unger scales another staircase of note -- a Santa Monica landmark that's been overrun by fitness fanatics.

People from all over the city gather in a tony Santa Monica beachside neighborhood to lumber up and down the 154 steps from the floor of a canyon to its rim. It's a morning ritual for all types of L.A. inhabitants. But Unger asks the question: How much fitness is too much fitness?

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Brian Unger’s satirical reports on culture and politics can currently be heard regularly on NPR.

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