With a famous address comes an unexpected kind of responsibility.
A Queens homeowner says he had no clue he was buying the real-life New York City address linked to Spider-Man and Aunt May — but three years later, he has embraced the role of unofficial guardian for one of comic book lore’s most beloved homes, even receiving touching fan mail from children around the world.
Jack Shi purchased 20 Ingram St. in Forest Hills three years ago, only later learning that the address had long been associated with Peter Parker and his Aunt May in the comics. The multimillion-dollar Forest Hills property had already been drawing Spider-Man fans for decades, long before the box-office success of “Brand New Day” brought a fresh wave of attention.
“People come here from Ireland, England, Italy. They always take pictures. And a lot of American people, they know, this is Spider-Man’s house,” Shi told The Post.
“It’s the spirit of America. Spider-Man is the spirit of America. He’s a hero.”
Shi, a 64-year-old native of China, said he began to understand the home’s unusual place in pop culture after buying it during the height of the Tom Holland-led Spider-Man film franchise.
“I feel mild responsibility because Spider-Man, this is the American spirit. If I am living here, I should do as Spider-Man,” the father of two said. “If someone wants to take a picture, I say yes.”
The attention does not stop at the sidewalk. Shi said children from across the globe send letters and drawings addressed to the Web Head, and many of them end up at his doorstep. The home is even labeled “Spider-Man’s home” on Google Maps, ensuring the Forest Hills address remains a destination for fans chasing a piece of superhero history.
“Spider-Man, how do you do the things that you do like saving the world?” Julius from South Dakota penned in April.
“Can you come over to my house to play? We can watch TV together,” another letter a child named Cooper wrote not just to Spidey, but Deadpool as well.
The family of little Kannon in Nebraska even invited Spider-Man to the tyke’s 5th birthday party.
“This is where I wanted to live. It is an exciting place,” Shi said.
“[My neighbors], they are good people,” he added of the area by Union Turnpike and Metropolitan Avenue.
Nearby at Frank Torres’ residence, he’s also used to being asked “if my house was a Spider House” — even though the Holland films are set closer to the East River around Astoria and Long Island City.
“I’d say it happens a few times every time a movie comes out,” said Torres, a 76-year-old who’s called Ingram Street home for three decades.
He has been local for long enough to know that not only the address made it into Marvel lore, but the real residents as well.
“The people who lived here were Parkers,” added Torres, a retired detective. “The Parkers told me about it, and then they told me that, and it was very easy to figure out, that whoever wrote the story had to know the people.”
It wasn’t only the good guys who lived on Ingram Street.
Across the block, neighbor Terry Osborne’s surname is now synonymous with the evil Green Goblin, aka Norman Osborn, according to Torres.
Terry and his family, however, were anything but supervillains, the former cop said.
“They were extremely gracious and wonderful, and even his son would dress up as Santa Claus and would give gifts to the kids in the neighborhood,” added Torres.
“It was [a] comic book. So nobody really got mad at it.”
