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Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man Week
By
Jen Carlson
Published Apr 2, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Apr 2, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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At the end of this month, your friendly neighborhood Spider Man will be all over New York for...Spider Man week! A five-borough-wide celebration (marketing ploy) featuring a ton of live events, screenings, parties and exhibits. The city has been central to the Marvel Comics legend since Spidey's beginning in 1962, so it only makes sense to launch the latest movie here.
"On one hand, New York is a battleground, and on the other, it's a stadium full of fans," says Arad, who says this dichotomy will be fully felt in "3." "Peter comes from Queens, and lives in a tiny apartment in Manhattan. Yet anonymity gives him the chance to be heroic." "Almost everyone in the 'Spider-Man' world is a quintessential New Yorker," agrees producer Laura Ziskin. "Like Daily Bugle editor J. Jonah Jameson [J.K. Simmons], and Mary Jane [Kirsten Dunst], with her Broadway dreams. We've always felt New York's a character in the films."
Of course, this wasn't too realistic, but the city is portrayed as more "here and now" than, say, Batman's Gotham City.
Some cool events happening that week:
• The American Museum of Natural History, being host to the largest spider collection in the world, will have the museum's Dr. Norm Platnick install a special spider exhibit featuring a dozen of the most unusual buggers you've ever seen. Origami projects, discussions, and Q&A's will also be included in the week (we'd like to ask him if that "Medusa spider" from last week's Lost is real!).
• The New York Public Library will host "The Ultimate Spider-Man Comic Book Collection." Comic book nerds worldwide will undoubtedly flock to get a glimpse at never-before-displayed original comics from the vaults.
The kick off party will be at Rockefeller Plaza in which Mayor Bloomberg will deliver the on-air proclamation renaming Rockefeller Plaza - Peter Parker Place. In the summer of 2004 they just put a giant Spiderman float (pictured) on the side of a Manhattan apartment building!
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Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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