On Monday afternoon, a couple hundred New Yorkers gathered together in the grey, but thankfully dry, weather, at the corner of Delancey and Essex in the Lower East Side. Among the notable guests were Doctor Doom, Galactus, and the Fantastic Four. The reason for the gathering? To see the unveiling of a new street sign celebrating Jack Kirby, who was born just a block away at 147 Essex Street.
This event and the naming of the street were a long time in the making, with pop culture historian Roy Schwartz working closely with the Kirby family and with the city of New York to officially rename the street on which Jack Kirby was born and where he grew up. Last year, there was a temporary publicity-driven renaming of Delancey Street to Yancy Street/Jack Kirby Way (comics fans will know that Delancey Street, of course, was the inspiration behind Yancy Street, the home of Ben Grimm), but that gimmick lasted only a few hours, while the sign unveiled on Monday is for keeps.
The unveiling event ran just under an hour and featured multiple speakers including Schwartz, New York City Councilmember Christopher Marte, Marvel’s Tom Brevoort, DC’s Paul Levitz, artist Jim Steranko, and three of Kirby’s grandchildren. The guests spoke to Kirby’s lasting legacy as an artist, as a man, and as a grandfather. After the speeches, fans and professionals gathered in front of the street sign covered in a green sleeve and watched as a rope was pulled to reveal the brand-new sign that read Jack Kirby Way.
Overall, the event was as it should have been – a celebration of a great man and artist, but the mood wasn’t quite so simplistic. There was a clear undertone, as there often is when comics folks talk about Kirby, that in celebrating his legacy, a wrong is being righted. Over the years, Jack Kirby’s story has become a central one to the history of American comics, one representative of the power of innovation, as well as exploitation, and the cold and ruthless way this industry has been known to function. So while the event was a celebration of Kirby’s impact on comics and pop culture, it was also an attempt to give credit where credit is lacking. As Councilmember Marte shared during his remarks, “This was beyond overdue.”
Attempts to give Jack Kirby more credit for his impact on comics are not new. The Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center has been dedicated, for decades, to educate the public about Kirby’s work. Columbia University’s curator for comics and cartoons Karen Green) has been attempting for years to get the city to officially recognize Kirby’s accomplishments. Documentary director Ricki Stern (Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work) recently announced a new documentary about Kirby titled Kirbyvision. However, for those who understand Kirby’s impact on comics and how he was treated by the comics industry, it has yet to feel quite enough.
As Paul Levitz shared in his speech, “Jack Kirby gave us a universe, and it’s only fitting that we acknowledge him as powerfully as we can in our universe.” Though we haven’t gotten quite there yet, a street naming does feel like a big step forward.
During the unveiling, a teenager, skateboard in hand, walked by me and paused at the spectacle. He asked the man to my right what was going on, and the man replied “History.” I found the comment interesting, as I hadn’t previously considered the moment to be historic, more an overdue marker of history. However, after mulling over it, I changed my mind. To succeed at an attempt to revert some of the sins of our pasts is a part of the history of comics too. And while it is frustrating that every time we speak of one of comic’s greats it holds the tone of righting a wrong, perhaps one day, Kirby’s name will be recognized enough that our tone changes.
