In 1955, art curator Dorothy Miller came to the West Coast. She included Hedrick in the 1959 "Sixteen Americans" show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, NY. Hedrick, knowing full well the importance of being on hand for the opening, gave his plane ticket for the New York museum exhibition and spectacle to friends, rather than participate. It would be 25 years before Hedrick figured prominently again in New York City, during the Whitney Museum of American Art’s, "Beat Culture and the New America: 1950-1965" exhibition in 1995.