Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Marvel Comics | Tagged: fantastic four, jack kirby

Jack Kirby Honored As New York Renames His Birthplace "Yancy Street"

Fantastic Four creator Jack Kirby honoured by Marvel and New York as the city renames his birthplace to Jack Kirby Way and Yancy Street

The corner of the Lower East Side of New York City, Essex Street and Delancey Street, the birthplace of Fantastic Four creator Jack Kirby, has been renamed today in a civic ceremony as Jack Kirby Way and Yancy Street. Jack Kirby was born and lived on that corner, at 147 Essex Street. And he paid tribute to the place he grew up, creating Yancy Street, home to Ben Grimm, The Thing. Much of the Thing's life was based on Jack Kirby and is reflected somewhat in the upcoming movie, The Fantastic Four: First Steps. And hence the ceremony today, attended by members of Jack Kirby's family and Marvel staffers. Marvel EIC C.B. Cebulski just posted to social media, saying "Honored to have been a part of this morning's ceremony honoring Jack Kirby by renaming Delancey St… Jack Kirby Way/Yancy St. Thanks to everyone at Marvel who helped make this happen, to the city of New York for working with us on the project, and to the Kirby family who flew in to be a part of this special day." Here is how the unveiling happened.

Jack Kirby was born in 1917 on 147 Essex Street, a tenement building on the Lower East Side of New York City. His birth name was Jacob Kurtzberg. His parents were Jewish Austrians and his father worked at a garment factory as many immigrants did to put bread on the table. Jacob would anglicize his name to "Jack Kirby" when he entered the job market as a comics artist and illustrator at the age of 19 in 1936. he told the Comics Journal, "I hated the place because I… Well, it was the atmosphere itself. It was the way people behaved. I got sick of chasing people all over rooftops and having them chase me over rooftops. I knew that there was something better."

Bleeding Cool writer Adi Tantimedh used to live on the same street in New York and looked it up for us a while back. He wrote;

"It's still the same building Kirby was born in. 147 Essex was built in 1900 and hasn't been demolished to make way for a condominium or fancy overpriced hotel as many buildings on the Lower East Side have been in the last ten years. The five-story walk-up has been renovated several times and probably changed ownership a few times in the last 100 years or so."

"Now painted a pretty red and nestled between another renovated tenement building on its left with a Chinese tea shop on the ground floor, 147 is home to Lazar Air conditioning and Heating, with a modern condominium on its right."

"The Lower East Side can still be a tough neighbourhood, but nowhere as tough or chaotic as Kirby's time. As recently as the 1970s and 1980s, the area was so dangerous that it was considered a no-go zone after 7pm. The Lower East, the East Village and Alphabet City were drugs-ridden, crime-ridden and full of homeless people, but also a place of cheap rent so many members of New York's artistic community lived here for a long time. That began to change in the 1980s when gentrification began to transform Downtown New York. Gentrification only began to hit the Lower East side south of Houston Street in the early 2000s and now it's truly transforming the neighbourhood with condominums, hipster bars, hotels, boutique restaurants, art galleries, a Trader Joe's opening, and the new Essex Crossing shopping and apartment complex scheduled to launch in 2019."

"Kirby continued to draw on his memories of the Lower East Side in his most famous work for Marvel Comics. The Yancy Street Gang was a reference to Delancey Street and the street gangs he used to be part of during his youth. In fact, Downtown New York plays a crucial part in the history of American comic books – many of the most renowned artists were the children of immigrants who grew up there and formed gangs to protect themselves from the others. By the time they grew up and became professional artists in the comics industry in the 1930s and 1940s, they already knew each other from the times they ran around beating each other up on the Lower East Side."

"147 Essex Street is right smack in the middle of what locals currently call Hell Square, a nine-block party zone bordered by East Houston Street, Allan Street, Delancey Street and Essex Street. The zone is filled with hipster bars, boutique restaurants and clubs, drawing in hipsters, tourists and partygoers from out of town, resulting in a sharp rise in muggings, rapes and violent assaults at night. The high number of bars and liquor licenses granted in the area have directly contributed to the rise in crime. Many of the perpetrators are muggers and gang members from outside the neighbourhood, usually from the Bronx or Brooklyn and drinkers in the Bridge & Tunnel Crowd."

"Jack Kirby was born on Essex Street in New York in 1917 and spent much of his early life trying to get away from those poor surroundings. His superhuman work ethic and talent got him out but those were developed in part through his involvement with the Boys Brotherhood Republic, an organization that helped many young men to put their youthful energy to constructive purposes.

"In one way or another, he wrote a lot about the B.B.R. in some of his comics and about those surroundings. In the Fantastic Four comic, Ben "The Thing" Grimm fought an ongoing feud with the kids of The Yancy Street Gang, which was a thinly-disguised version of a real-life gang that claimed Delancey Street as their home turf."

And now the street is named after Jack Kirby an the fictionalised version he made famous. For now, anyway.

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