A human superhero: Push to honor Lower East Sider and Superhero co-creator Jack Kirby

An effort is underway to co-name a Lower East Side street for Jack Kirby, the artist and Lower East Side native who co-created many of the nation’s best-known comic book heroes.

Signatures are being collected, supporters are on board and there is a plan to present the proposal at Community Board 3’s Oct. 14 meeting to honor Kirby with a street-co-naming as Jack Kirby Way near his birthplace, at 147 Essex Street.

A kind of fifth, or maybe sixth, member of the Fantastic Four, Kirby co-created much of Marvel’s arsenal of superheroes, as the artist behind the Fantastic Four, Captain America, the Hulk, Iron Man, the Avengers, the X-Men, Silver Surfer, Black Panther. He also had a hand in creating Spider-Man.

New York City, along with Marvel comics, on July 9 before “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” movie opened on July 24, for one day put up temporary signs at the corner of Delancey and Essex renaming Delancey Street Yancy Street and Jack Kirby Way.

This is a push for a more permanent memorial to Kirby, whose work remains very much in the public eye. Those signs have come down, but the hope is for an official, more formal co-naming.

“Jack Kirby’s story is the story of the Lower East Side: the son of Jewish immigrants who grew up in a crowded tenement, drew inspiration from our streets, and went on to change the world,” said Council Member Christopher Marte, who supports the proposal. “Through characters like Captain America, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men, Kirby gave voice to the struggles and hopes of working-class New Yorkers, turning this neighborhood into the backdrop of modern mythology.”

Jack Kirby’s ‘Street Code’Public domain

Marte believes honoring Kirby is a way to attract attention not only to Kirby, but to the Lower East Side as the source of so many legendary, mythic heroes.

“Honoring him with ‘Jack Kirby Way’ at Essex and Delancey isn’t just about celebrating a legendary artist,” Marte said. “It’s about recognizing the lasting impact of the Lower East Side on American culture and making sure future generations know that history was created right here.”

While Kirby isn’t as well-known as Stan Lee, his work is known to millions through print and cinema.

When audiences saw “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” they were seeing the work of Marvel, Disney and everyone involved with the movie as well as Stan Lee and Lower East Side native and Fantastic Four co-creator Jack Kirby.

“We can confidently refer to him as one of the most important artists of the 20th century. The characters and concepts he created have become so universally beloved and impactful,” Roy Schwartz, a pop culture historian and board member of the American Jewish Historical Society, said of Kirby. “We’re talking about a multi-billion-dollar industry. That’s a significant impact for one artist.”

Columbia University’s Curator for Comics and Cartoons, Kareen Green, sees Kirby as a key connection between these figures and New York City.

“Mr. Kirby was born at 147 Essex Street in a tenement house that still stands,” she said. “He immortalized that neighborhood in several comics, most notably making Delancey Street into “Yancy Street,” the home neighborhood of The Thing (from the Fantastic Four).”

She called him “incredibly significant in the history of comics, which themselves track closely with the history of New York City, the home of the comics industry.” And she sees him as an artist who provides a link between print and movies, art and animation.

“In addition to the superhero comics mentioned above, he co-created the entire genre of romance comics,” Green said. “And the worlds he created, thanks to Hollywood, are better known to the general public than ever before.”

Kirby, who was born as Jacob Kurtzberg and lived from 1917 to 1996, grew up at 147 Essex Street, near Delancey Street, and based settings for some stories on his childhood, but remains a nearly forgotten superhero creator.

“That block, that street and area are dominantly featured in his work,” said Schwartz, who launched the push and has since collected dozens of names from the street in question. “Jack Kirby made much of his work autobiographical.”

Kirby even made a comic about his childhood on the Lower East Side, titled “Street Code,” published by an independent publisher years after helping create superheroes.

“His work was informed by his childhood on the Lower East Side, which never stopped being featured in his stories,” Schwartz said. “Rarely does the person being honored have a connection to the community like this.”

Kirby based a character called The Thing on himself, including temperament, personality and an exaggeration of his looks, habits and speech patterns. The Thing’s name is Benjamin Jacob after Kirby’s father and himself.

“They both grew up on the Lower East Side,” Schwartz said of Kirby and the character. “Kirby fictionalized Delancey Street in the comics as Yancy Street, which is famous in the lore.”

Roy Schwartz in front of Jack Kirby’s birthplace at 147 Essex StreetPhoto by Roy Schwartz

An outgoing person and key force behind the creation of so many superheroes, Stan Lee is honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, as well as a “Stan Lee Way” in the Bronx, at University Avenue between Brandt Place and West 176 Street.

“Stan Lee was the main writer of Marvel in the ‘60s, as well as the editor-in-chief. Jack Kirby was a freelancer,” Schwartz added. “The nature of that power dynamic really affected who got credit. Even though they collaborated, he never got the same recognition as Lee. There’s a measure of justice in getting this done for him.”

When Disney bought Marvel in 2009 for $4.2 billion, the Kirby estate filed a case related to the termination of ownership. They settled in 2014, a day before the case arrived at the United States Supreme Court.

Many point to Kirby as an inspiration dating back to their childhood, such as Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin; director Guillermo Del Toro and writer Michael Chabon, a collector of Kirby art.

Milton “Bill” Finger, who with Bob Kane created Batman for DC Comics, has been honored in New York City, with a co-naming on 192nd St. near the corner of Grand Concourse, where he lived near Poe Park.

“The park is where he would meet with Kane to come up with the idea of Batman and the stories,” Schwartz said. “So there’s a precedent, and certainly Jack Kirby deserves the same honor, for significantly greater output.”

Memorials are going up nationwide to superhero creators, including Superman Plaza, with statues of Superman and his creators in Cleveland, honoring Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Schwartz noted Kirby created and co-created a virtual army of superheroes, so the street co-naming would be honoring a very human hero of a different kind. “That’s a lot of impact for one guy,” Schwartz said of Kirby’s work.