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Spider-Man, New York City’s very own neighborhood superhero, has been capturing the hearts and imaginations of kids (and adults) for decades. This affection has spilled out onto pages and pages of letters children have written over time and sent to what has been known as Spider-Man/Peter Parker’s address.
In the 317th issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, published in 1989, Venom shows up at Peter Parker’s Queens home, which is at 20 Ingram Street in Forest Hills, according to a Time Out New York article from May 2002.
Since that address was published in the issue, fans have been sending letters there. Ironically, a family called the Parkers lived there between 1974 and 2017. (The house is currently on the market for $2.1 million, according to the New York Times.)
“There was a period when we were getting tons of it,” Suzanne Parker told Time Out in 2002. “In retrospect, I suppose it could have been any kid who thought this was Spider-Man’s address and started filling things out to get mail sent here. Peter Parker has a Discover card that was sent here. And every so often, he gets letters from Discover, saying that he’s such a good customer.”
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Now, the Parkers are sharing some of the best letters penned mostly by kids from around the world—Switzerland, India, and Russia—at City Reliquary, a quirky museum of NYC ephemera in Brooklyn, in an exhibit called “Dear Spider-Man.”
Below are some of our favorites from the collection:
You can look at more of them on the Dear Spider-Man blog and see them in person at City Reliquary, 370 Metropolitan Avenue in Brooklyn, weekends from noon to 6pm.