Strangers recreate WWII 'Kissing Sailor' photo at the Eagles Parade and it goes viral

Sarah Jones
Friday 09 February 2018 12:51 GMT
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A visitor takes a snapshot of 'VJ Day a Times Square, New York, NY, 1945' by Alfred Eisenstaedt during the 'Life. I grandi fotografi' (Life. The great photographers) exhibition at the auditorium on April 30, 2013 in Rome. The exhibition showing some 150 pictures taken from 1936 when the US magazine Life magazine premiered will be open from May, 1 to August 4, 2013.
A visitor takes a snapshot of 'VJ Day a Times Square, New York, NY, 1945' by Alfred Eisenstaedt during the 'Life. I grandi fotografi' (Life. The great photographers) exhibition at the auditorium on April 30, 2013 in Rome. The exhibition showing some 150 pictures taken from 1936 when the US magazine Life magazine premiered will be open from May, 1 to August 4, 2013. (Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty)

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Two strangers met up at the Eagles Parade to recreate the famous WWII ‘Kissing Sailor’ photo.

An image that came to symbolise the joy felt at the end of the Second World War in 1945, photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captured the moment sailor George Mendonsa pulled in nurse Greta Zimmer Friedman for a kiss as she walked through the crowd.

73 years later, two complete strangers have recreated the iconic photo to celebrate their own kind of victory.

To commemorate the Eagles’ Super Bowl win on Sunday, super-fan Shamus Clancy tweeted a photo of the ‘Kissing Sailor’ alongside the caption, “Me and your girl on Broad Street.”

In response another fan, Ashley Suder, made it known that she would be willing to recreate it.

“If you’re looking for a girl to recreate this during the parade I’m here for it,” she tweeted.

The two of them arranged to meet at the Eagles Parade where hundreds of thousands of fans gathered to celebrate the team’s historic victory.

Starting at Broad Street and Pattison Avenue, the parade moved on to City Hall before making its way to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, home of the famous “Rocky” staircase.

Amongst the crowd Clancy and Suder recreated the famous photo as an unknown photographer captured the moment they locked lips.

After posting the image on Twitter, where it all began, the photo quickly went viral receiving 635 retweets and being liked more than 5,000 times.

People responded to the picture in droves with one person saying that it was “a thousand times sweeter than the story behind the original.”

However, others were quick to point out that the recreation wasn’t exactly the same as Clancy elevated Suder’s leg instead of holding her waist.

In response Suder explained, “We added a little philly spice.”

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