Harry Houdini

As wild as this may sound, legendary famed magician, Harry Houdini, was a real regular on my 2024 radar. I mean to tell you, this man kept popping up all throughout the year in the most unexpected ways! It was because of these intermittent Harry Houdini pop-ups that I knew when writing my 2024 year end synopsis, I wanted to include an excerpt about him. Well, after reassessing my relationship with old Harry, I realized a sole paragraph tucked in amongst all else just wasn’t going to suffice, this magic man deserved a post all of his own.

As I do hope you saw in my last post, Houdini by Dua Lipa was my #1 most listened to song of 2024. Released in November of 2023, but discovered by me (according to Apple Music) on January 13, this ear worm had an immediate sonic gridlock on my life. I gave it 334 plays throughout last year, that’s nearly once per day! It bested its closest competitor by just 29 listens! That second place song being, Been Like This by Meghan Trainor and T-Pain. I LOVE Meghan Trainor, so for Dua to usurp her is a real big deal for me. B Listers rarely overtake my A List, so wait… does this mean Dua Lipa has joined my A List rankings!?! Unclear.

About a month into my obsession with Dua’s Houdini, I found this TikTok video of a user standing over Harry Houdini’s grave while singing the chorus of Dua’s smash hit. As macabre as this may seem, I think Harry would’ve loved it, and I definitely think he would’ve loved Dua Lipa’s song as the TikTok user proclaimed. Why do I feel so strongly that Harry would’ve loved it? Because that night following that video I went down a Harry Houdini wormhole that amplified my knowledge on this legendary magician to a point where I feel like I could just about write a biography on the guy.

First up, I can’t really mention his gravesite without tell you all where it is and that would be New York City. Well, the Machpelah Cemetery in Glendale, Queens to be exact. Here’s another fun fact, despite graven images being absolutely forbidden in Jewish cemeteries, Houdini’s grave has boasted a statuary bust since 1927, one year after his passing. Horrifically in 1975, the original bust was completely destroyed by vandals leaving temporary installations to come and go until 2011 when the Houdini Museum of Scranton, Pennsylvania placed a brand new permanent bust at the site. You can all mark my words right now, one day, I’m getting to this gravesite in Queens, New York City and also that museum in Scranton! I mean, after sharing all of 2024 together, I really do owe it to Harry.

Now as if one bonafide blockbuster of a hit song baring his name wasn’t enough, along comes another and this one, while being completely unique and different in every way imaginable, was still just as iconic and catchy as the first! Legendary hitmaker Eminem released his own Houdini as the lead single off his twelfth studio album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace), on May 31. Just like with Dua’s Houdini though, I was late to the party and didn’t pick this jam up till the tail end of our Disneyland trip in late June. HUGE THANK YOU to our near and dear friend, Kamber, for blasting this anthem in the car for us that day she drove us to the airport! God Bless you Kamber for further weaving my newfound Harry Houdini web.

Interpolating another hit song I love, Abracadabra by the Steve Miller Band, Eminem’s Houdini instantly became my summertime anthem! Really and truly, it consumed my July. While on my own personal end of year charts it didn’t fare as well as Dua’s Harry homage, it still managed a pretty nice placing coming in at #25. Not at all bad for a song that only had half the year to compete.

Now we all know that Eminem is from Detroit, Michigan. He couldn’t be more proud of that fact and after visiting Detroit this October, I most definitely understand why. That city is absolutely incredible, I loved it so much and would return in a heartbeat. But do we all know that Harry Houdini actually has super strong ties to Detroit as well?

Harry gave his final career performance in Detroit at the Garrick Theatre on October 24, 1926. Following that show, he collapsed and was taken to Grace Hospital where it was discovered he had a ruptured appendix and peritonitis (an inflammation of the abdominal wall). Despite removing his appendix, the poison had already spread throughout his bloodstream and Houdini died on the night of Halloween at the age of 52. I cannot imagine, and I’m sure neither could he, a better night for him to die on than Halloween. I mean, come on, the world’s most famous magician and illusionist dying on All Hallow’s Eve!?! Does it get any better than that!?! Short answer: no.

While educating myself substantially on his life back in February, I actually learned all these Detroit details about his death, so I was absolutely thrilled when on our haunted walking tour, we got to see the parking garage that now stands where the hospital he died in once did. The parking garage is for a medical complex, so at least the ties to the original are still somewhat intact. To truly elevate our Houdini happenings, we were standing there – at the same exact site where Harry would’ve been – some 98 years later! Remarkable. That honestly gave me such a rush. Then to top it all off, we got to see the only building remaining in town with any ties left to Houdini: the long since abandoned William R. Hamilton Funeral Home. This is where they embalmed Harry’s body before sending him to be buried in New York.

In case you can’t tell by now, I got hooked on Houdini in 2024! I mean, I lit up when we saw that parking garage at the corner of Willis and John R Streets knowing that it stood where the Grace Hospital once did. You would’ve honestly thought it was Disneyland by the way I was feeling. I chose not to take any photos of the aforementioned funeral home because it appeared as though some homeless people were taking residence on the porch and it just didn’t feel right photographing the place with them unsuspectingly there. Plus in these situations, I like to live by the motto, if you don’t cause any problems, there won’t be any.

When looking at all Harry Houdini accomplished in his illustrious career, it’s easy to understand why he’s still every bit as famous today as he was in the early 1900’s. He began his magic career in 1891 at the age of seventeen, but it was met with very minimal success. Life truly began to turn around for Houdini though by 1900 after meeting Martin Beck, a talent manager, just the year before. Beck was so impressed by Houdini’s handcuff escapes that he booked him to do these acts at all the top Vaudeville Houses in America. Vaudeville, for those unaware, is a theatrical genre that featured a wide variety of entertainment that was extraordinarily popular at the turn of the 20th century. Huge success in Europe gave Houdini the opportunity to travel the globe performing his famous escape acts, various illusions, card tricks, and even outdoor stunts. By 1904 he had become the world’s highest paid entertainer and a household name everywhere.

Well, now you have why 2024 really was the Year of Harry Houdini for me. See what I mean though, there’s just no way I could’ve shoved all this knowledge and connection into a singular paragraph in my previous post! Harry, like he did in real life, absolutely rose above the Vaudeville circuit and in this case, my Vaudeville-style blog. A once-in-a-lifetime entertainer who brought a new form of entertainment to the world, helped me bring a new form of entertainment to my blog, and made me incredibly excited to see if 2025 provides me with another historical tie.

As always, THANK YOU so much for reading! I appreciate you greatly! Feel free to leave a comment below as I love reading and responding to them! I’ll return soon with another all new post, so until then, I wish you all, all the best!