Where is the map with all these locations highlighted?
The actor Matt Damon just moved into the co-op building here in Brooklyn Heights that in another universe—that of DC Comics—housed Clark Kent last century.
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The Upper East Side, Lower East Side, Greenwich Village and Forest Hills: no wonder I've never seen any of these guys on the M-10 or the 1 Train.
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@Alan Chaprack At least Dardevil is in Hell's Kitchen and Luke Cage is in Harlem!
And let's not forget that Spiderman rescued some people from the Roosevelt Island Tram!
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Lest we forget--District X--the Mutant "hangout" is here in my beloved Alphabet City. Oft-times I look around Tompkins Square Park...in the shadows and up in the trees...when I see a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye..and wonder if, just maybe...
And the community gardens that dot the streets and avenues here...such a treat and respite for the soul during the day. Sometimes, though, on the way back from Boris & Horton's in the evening along 12th between Avenues B and C--my Ohio woods-trained hunter's ears and eyes hear the tell-tail rustle and a fleeting movement. DB--she tells me it is just a rat...but I wonder, could it be another recruit for Magneto?
I swear Spider-Man lives in my apartment building.
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And even though it never made it into the terrible Thor movie, let's not forget the Malekith the Dark Elf at one point hid the Casket of Ancient Winters by wrapping it in a black plastic bag and taping it to the underside of the High Line ... back in the 80's when it was a deserted ruin.
"Stan Lrr Presents the Mightly Thor," drawn by Walter Simonson, wherein the magical wild hunt takes place on the 59th street bridge to Queens...
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i think the point is, we left new york by ocean liner to arrive in Beirut in 1962, but the Marvel comics were always a
reminder of the new york we had left, to me..
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my father, an FSO was stationed in Beirut in the sixties, and my older brother got these comics. We (my older bro and me, I like to think - maybe just him!) joined the MMMS, the merry marvel marching society, from Beirut, and I have looked down on DC and superman ever since..I think my take-away is, the diffusion of culture from older relatives is extremely world enhancing..My Dad , born in 1924 in the Bronx, had seen Billy Holliday, and the first Broadway run of Finians Rainbow, among others.....Stan Lee was part of me from early on, and because of my older brother....in Beirut in the sixties..
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Great story, but it really calls for illustration with a keyed map!
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Mr. Barron, very good article and a fine tribute to Mr. Lee.
Just fyi -- "When Peter Parker’s girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, is kidnapped by the Green Goblin and thrown off a bridge, Mr. Romita, the Marvel Comics artist, drew the Brooklyn Bridge."
Actually, the great Gil Kane drew the Brooklyn Bridge in Amazing Spider-Man #121. Mr. Romita Sr. and Tony Mortellaro inked Mr. Kane's pencils in that classic issue.
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@Aleister And Gerry Conway wrote the issue. Lee had moved on from writing ASM more than a year earlier. Lee greenlighted Stacy's death.
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@Ken I got those issues when they were new on the stands in 1973 -- purchased them at a mom & pop shop in Salt Lake City, where my father was stationed as a Navy recruiter at the time.
Roy Thomas was the editor and Conway, aged 20 when he wrote the story, had Spider-Man deduce that the Goblin had gone to the George Washington Bridge because, well, good ol' George was on the $1.00 bill and the Goblin loved money. At the time, my 11 year old self, who had never been to NYC, would have not known the difference between the GW Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge, but at least a few other readers noticed and wrote in about the error. The letters pages of Marvel Comics of the '60s and '70s were often nearly as entertaining as the stories themselves, and occasionally even educational!
Captain America = Brooklyn! No Daredevil, the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. Big oversight. Or Luke Cage. Or Iron Fist. Or Jessica Jones. (Not a Netflix fan?) Also oversights. But, yes, all about the grit, the height, the alleys, the grandeur. These are the immediately accessible juxtapositions of destitution and wealth, desire and greed, light and dark.
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Gotham and Metropolis may not have included Real-NY locations, but they are both homages to NYC.
"Gotham" has been a nickname for NYC since Washington Irving's 1807 satire periodical "Salmagundi."
"Before it was applied to New York City, Gotham was a term meant "wise fools" because, according to legend, the 15th century residents of the real-life British village of Gotham pretended to be crazy in order to avoid paying taxes to the king."
As Frank Miller explained, "Metroplis is NY in the daytime [on a bright sunny summer day], Gotham is NY at night [on a cold overcast night]."
Sources:
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/gotham-metropolis-nyc-best-nicknames-article-1.2556511
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nicknames_of_New_York_City
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@asdfj
I thought Metropolis was Chicago...