It is no small thing to get a Manhattan street named after you, but the creator of such timeless superheroes as Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Ant-Man, the Hulk and Iron Man received that honor on Monday, when the Lower East Side block where he was born was named “Jack Kirby Way.”

Kirby was born Jacob Kurtzberg in 1917 near the corner of Delancey and Essex Streets, which is now home to a McDonald’s but in his youth was filled with horse-drawn carts selling all manner of produce and household goods.

He made his way out of a hardscrabble upbringing during the Depression to become one of the most storied comic book superhero co-creators in the art form’s history.

Kirby died in 1994 at 76, known as “the king of comics.”

“Widely recognized as the most prolific and arguably most important creator in the history of the comic book medium, Jack Kirby is also one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century,” according to a new exhibit on his life and work at Manhattan’s Center for Jewish History.

The exhibition, “The Jack Kirby Way: How a boy from the Lower East Side became the King of Comics,” is co-produced by the American Jewish Historical Society and the Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center. It will be on view through Nov. 30.

One of the artifacts on display in the show is the original “Captain America” comic books, issues 1 through 10. Joe Simon, who co-created the character and many more with Kirby, owned the issues on display.

The iconic first issue of “Captain America,” published in March 1941, shows the superhero punching Hitler in the face, before the United States entered the war.

Many Americans had not yet come to support the idea that the Nazis needed to be vanquished.

Its publication led to death threats to both men by the German-American Bund, Roy Schwartz, a board member of AJHS and the person who drove the effort to get the street co-named in Kirby’s honor, told JNS.

The police, when contacted by Kirby and Simon, refused to do anything to help, according to Schwartz.

Then-mayor Fiorello LaGuardia contacted the comic book artists and promised them personally that they would be kept safe. LaGuardia’s mother, Irene Luzzatto-Coen, was a Sephardic Jew.

As a little boy growing up in Tel Aviv, Schwartz was obsessed with comics, including Kirby’s, he told JNS.

American relatives would mail him new releases, and he learned English by reading them.

Now employed by day as “a mild-mannered chief marketing agency for a large law firm,” as he told JNS, he is the author of “Was Superman Circumcised?” and other books and essays exploring Jewish aspects of comic book history.

Schwartz was the driving force behind the labyrinthine bureaucratic process by which city agencies approved a co-named New York City street.

“There was enough red tape to circle Galactus several times,” Schwartz told JNS.

Captain America was and remains his favorite superhero, Schwartz told JNS, a few feet away from the newly-renamed street sign.

‘Medium that Jews invented’

The comic book business was always heavily Jewish, which appeared to be a point of pride among many of the roughly 250 people who attended the unveiling of the Jack Kirby Way street sign.

The crowd was dominated by middle-aged men wearing superhero t-shirts.

“It is a medium that Jews invented, basically,” said Paul Golin, an attendee from Park Slope, Brooklyn, who wore an Avengers t-shirt for the event.

“Superman, Batman, almost all of it,” he told JNS. “Stan Lee and Jack Kirby did all of these Marvel superheroes.”

Golin, executive director of the Society for Humanistic Judaism, is a long-time, major Kirby fan.

“I love all of his work. It continues to blow me away, and he was so prolific,” he told JNS. “He is so Jewish, so if you take pride in the accomplishment of fellow Jews, then he’s someone you should know about.”

A handful of superfans, dressed as if they had just come from Comic Con as Jack Kirby characters, including members of the Fantastic Four, an X-Man, Galactus and Dr. Doom, were also in attendance.

Less elaborately dressed but honored with seats on the dais were Schwartz, Tom Brevoort, executive editor and senior vice president of publishing at Marvel Comics; Marvel artist and writer Jim Steranko; and former DC Comics president and publisher Paul Levitz.

Kirby’s three adult grandchildren spoke about his legacy to them, saying that their grandfather was a comic-book superhero in his own right.

“From these humble beginnings, he created entire universes that are now out there inspiring people across the world,” said grandson Jeremy Kirby, who sells memorabilia from and about his grandfather on the site Jack Kirby Comics.

Adam McGovern traveled to the Lower East Side from New Jersey for the event, wearing a t-shirt from a 2018 Jack Kirby museum exhibit.

He said he had come because Kirby was “the creator, who was one of the most inspirational to me in terms of what is possible and what you can strive for in life.”

“I would have walked here from New Jersey for this,” McGovern added.

   | Read More JNS.org – Jewish News Syndicate