Jack Kirby Was a Kid From the Lower East Side Who Became the ‘King of Comics’ and Made Superhero Mythology. Now, New York City Has Named a Street After Him

The artist who co-created Captain America and other iconic characters is being honored in the neighborhood where he grew up

Samantha Baskind | Museums Correspondent

May 7, 2026 3:31 p.m.

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At the corner of Delancey and Essex Streets on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, a new sign will read: “Jack Kirby Way.” This is where the comic book legend was born Jacob Kurtzberg in 1917. As a child, he lived in a tenement building, growing up in a neighborhood that was once among the most densely populated on Earth.

He went on to become Jack Kirby, artist and co-creator alongside the likes of Joe Simon, Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Don Heck, who helped give the world Marvel heroes such as Captain America, Black Panther, X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Thor and Iron Man. He also designed many characters and concepts beyond superheroes.

“He had a once-in-a-generation talent and ability to capture anything in his mind, from abstract cosmic deities and explosive super heroic battles to more relatable, yet powerful, character moments, and breathe life into them on every page,” says Dan Buckley, head of Marvel Comics and Franchise, in an email. “His designs and vision of how to tell a story are a foundational part of our legacy.”

The street was temporarily redubbed “Jack Kirby Way” last summer in a promotional event tied to the blockbuster film The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and then the change was made permanent by the New York City Council in December. A formal unveiling ceremony will take place on Monday, May 11.

The campaign to co-name the street after Kirby was spearheaded by Roy Schwartz, pop culture historian and board member of the Jack & Roz Kirby Awards.

“It was a nice homage by Marvel, but it wasn’t anything official or permanent, which struck me as an injustice,” Schwartz says of the initial update. “Karen Green, the curator for comics and cartoons at Columbia University, had been trying to get the city to recognize Kirby in some way for a decade. Turns out changing a street name in New York City isn’t easy, but we eventually did it.”

The name Delancey Street echoes the barely disguised “Yancy Street,” the fictional address of Fantastic Four’s the Thing, a.k.a. Benjamin Jacob Grimm (“Jacob” for Jack, and “Benjamin” for Kirby’s father), the big orange brawler with a rocky physique and a Brooklyn accent. The artist named his most autobiographical character’s street after his own childhood block. When Kirby drew Ben Grimm being taunted by the Yancy Street Gang, he was drawing what he had lived, dressed in the language of science fiction and fantasy. “If you’ll notice the way the Thing talks and acts, you’ll find that the Thing is really Jack Kirby,” Kirby once said.

“For Marvel in particular, NYC has always been a part of our DNA,” says Buckley. “NYC sits at the heart of our storytelling, and in many ways, it has become a character in and of itself in our stories, largely due to the experiences from Jack in the Lower East Side and his colleagues from the early days of Marvel. We’re honored to see the city and so many others feel the same way.”

Outside New York, a huge piece of Kirby’s legacy is now housed in the collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. In March, the museum received the astounding donation of Captain America Comics No. 1, the hero’s very first issue, co-created by Kirby and writer Joe Simon.

“Until recently, comic collecting at the museum has been rather piecemeal and sporadic, yet Kirby’s incredible creativity and vision can be found in all forms of media and merchandise throughout our holdings,” says Eric Jentsch, the museum’s curator of popular culture and sports history.

Within the cornucopia of the collection is a 1976 Marvel super heroes lunchbox decorated with Captain America, Thor and Spider-Man—and a transforming Hulk. Also present are comic books featuring many of Kirby’s superhero creations, including the Fantastic Four, Black Panther and X-Men, all produced long after he had left those characters behind. In 2007, even the United States Postal Service capitalized on superheroes’ popularity, when it issued a sheet of 20 Marvel Comics 41-cent stamps. Kirby had at least a hand in conceptualizing many of the featured characters.

Before this acquisition, the Institution held only one somewhat obscure example of Kirby’s original artwork: a 1975 issue of Atlas. But other objects in the museum’s collection are as revealing of Kirby’s cultural achievement as any page could be.

The Smithsonian also acquired the prop shield carried by actor Chris Evans as the titular hero in the film Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a physical emblem from the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise, which has generated more than $30 billion at the global box office.

Kirby didn’t make any of these objects, but they all owe their existence to him.

“It’s estimated that he produced over 20,000 pages of published art, which seems impossible, yet there it is,” says Schwartz. “He co-created most of the Marvel pantheon and a good chunk of DC’s and he coined many of the art form’s visual idioms. Kirby is to comics what Shakespeare is to literature—the great master who’ll forever be its highest standard.”

Captain America was Kirby’s first significant co-creation. In 1940, he and his creative partner Joe Simon published the first issue of Captain America. The cover, dated March 1941, depicts their hero landing a right cross directly on Adolf Hitler’s jaw. This was not a subtle artistic statement; it was a declaration. Kirby, the son of Jewish immigrants from Europe, had grown up watching fascism consolidate power across the Atlantic.

The character’s evolution traces the arc of American anxiety across eight decades: The Cold War Captain America carried his shield against communist infiltration. The post-Watergate Cap renounced the uniform in disillusionment. After September 11, the character wrestled with the relationship between patriotism and dissent in ways that sold millions of comics. Each of these iterations required writers and artists working in the tradition Kirby had established.

“Writing Captain America was a dream come true, but it was also a tremendous responsibility and a tremendous honor to add my voice to Kirby’s canon,” says author Andrew Aydin, who wrote a 2019 story about Cap during the civil rights movement. “Comics is a uniquely American medium that has spread the world over, and it is long overdue that the great masters of the form receive their public recognition.”

The prop shield at the Smithsonian is a recent embodiment of the extent of Kirby’s impact. Since 2011, Evans has carried versions of Cap’s signature accessory through various films, and millions of viewers around the world now recognize the symbol immediately, without context.

Marvel films translated Kirby’s visual vocabulary—his thunderous panel compositions, sense of cosmic scale and conviction that ordinary humans could achieve extraordinary things—into a global cinematic language. Kirby has “helped create the shared mythology of our culture, shaping understandings of ourselves and the world around us,” says Jentsch.

Generations who have never heard of Jacob Kurtzberg from the Lower East Side have nonetheless been influenced by what he made. When they learn who created their heroes, they can pay homage at Jack Kirby Way.

Samantha Baskind | Read More

Samantha Baskind is Distinguished Professor of Art History at Cleveland State University. She is the author of six books, most recently Moses Jacob Ezekiel: Jewish, Confederate, Expatriate Sculptor.