The gesture may lack the explosive drama of a rooftop fight or the tension of a car chase, but on May 11, 2026, a street sign honoring a legendary comics creator will be unveiled in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

After a lobbying effort by comics expert Roy Schwartz, the New York City Council in December 2025 approved the naming of a block of Essex Street between Delancey and Rivington streets in honor of Jack Kirby.

Kirby, born Jacob Kurtzberg in 1917 to Jewish immigrants, spent roughly the first 40 years of his life in New York, aside from a stint serving in the military during World War II. Before enlisting, he’d already embarked on a career as a comics artist. He went on to become a key figure during the medium’s golden age, a period that most scholars and fans agree began with the creation of Superman in 1938 and ended with the implementation of the Comics Code Authority in 1956, which heavily restricted content until enforcement weakened in the 1970s.

Though you may not have heard of Kirby, you’d have to deliberately avoid pop culture to miss his most influential creations: Captain America, the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Thor, Hulk, Iron Man and Black Panther.

For my part, however, as a scholar of American Jewish immigration history – and as a lifelong comic book fan – I hold a place of reverence for the man known as the “King of Comics.”

Jewish American history, immigration history, the history of New York City and the origins of the comics industry are inextricably linked. New York played a starring role in the golden age of comics. And like Kirby, many of the........

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