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| Established | 2012 |
|---|---|
| Location | Wayne, NJ [1] |
| Coordinates | 40°45′07″N73°59′27″W / 40.7520447°N 73.9907061°W |
| Type | Magic museum |
| Owner | Roger Dreyer |
| Website | www |
The Houdini Museum of New York is a museum exhibiting memorabilia related to the escape artist, Harry Houdini. It is located at Fantasma Magic, a retail magic manufacturer. [2] [3]
Opened in October 2012, [4] the Houdini Museum of New York contains several hundred pieces of ephemera, most of which belonged to magician and escape artist Harry Houdini. Of the museum's many pieces, Houdini's 1907 escape coffin (in which Houdini was sealed with six-inch nails and subsequently escaped), the "robot" from Houdini's 1919 silent film The Master Mystery , and Houdini's Metamorphosis Trunk are the largest. Other notable pieces include the original bust from Houdini's grave (on loan to the museum from S.A.M. Parent Assembly Number One), Bess Houdini's stage outfit and a large selection of smaller pieces such as Houdini's personal magic and escape props. There are also many items related to Houdini's interest in the debunking of spiritualists. [5] [6] The Houdini memorabilia is said to be worth more than $1 million. [7] and has been variously estimated to have cost "several million." [4]
It is in an unassuming and almost unheralded location, and as such is easily missed. [8] The museum has also been featured as both a point of interest and a background location on several television shows including ABC World News , [9] Fox & Friends , [10] NY1, [11] MTV and Good Day New York . [7]
The museum is owned by Houdini collector Roger Dreyer (also the owner and CEO of Fantasma Magic) and was designed by architect and designer David Rockwell. [4] [12] It features over 1,500 pieces of "Houdiniana," which portends an "ever changing display." [4] [13] [14] Dreyer's Houdini collection is the second-largest in the world; the first being the collection of Las Vegas illusionist David Copperfield. [4] [14]
Harry Houdini was an American escape artist, magic man, and stunt performer, noted for his escape acts. His pseudonym is a reference to his spiritual master, French magician Robert-Houdin (1805–1871).
Douglas James Henning was a Canadian magician, illusionist, escape artist and politician.
David Seth Kotkin, known professionally as David Copperfield, is an American magician, described by Forbes as the most commercially successful magician in history.
Buatier de Kolta was a French magician who performed throughout the latter part of the 1800s in Europe and America.
This timeline of magic is a history of the performing art from B.C. to the present.
The Mansion is a four-bedroom mansion owned by music producer Rick Rubin in the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles. Originally built in 1918, the house is famous for the successful bands who have recorded music there. The house was owned by Errol Flynn in the late 1930s. Although many say that Harry Houdini lived at the mansion, no one has ever lived in the Mansion under the name "Houdini". There is confusion between The Mansion, at 2451 Laurel Canyon Blvd., and The Houdini Estate, at 2400 Laurel Canyon Blvd.
Laurel Canyon Boulevard is a major street in the city of Los Angeles. It starts off at Polk Street in Sylmar in the northern San Fernando Valley near the junction of the San Diego and the Golden State (I-5)) freeways. Laurel Canyon Boulevard bypasses the city of San Fernando to the west, running parallel to I-5 in the vicinity of Pacoima and Arleta. The portion through Sun Valley passes through rock quarries and a great deal of open space.
Martinka & Company is America's longest running magic company. The business was for a period owned by Houdini and throughout the years the company has acquired and combined with over 30 other magic firms including Flosso-Hornmann, and Milton Chase.
Dorothy Dietrich is an American stage magician and escapologist, best known for performing the bullet catch in her mouth and the first woman to perform a straitjacket escape while suspended hundreds of feet in the air from a burning rope. She was the first woman to gain prominence as an escape artist since the days of Houdini, breaking the glass ceiling for women in the field of escapes and magic.
The Chinese Water Torture Cell is a predicament escape made famous by Hungarian-American magician Harry Houdini. The illusion consists of three parts: first, the magician's feet are locked in stocks; next, he is suspended in mid-air from his ankles with a restraint brace; finally, he is lowered into a glass tank overflowing with water and the restraint is locked to the top of the cell.
The Houdini Museum is located at Scranton, Pennsylvania. Harry Houdini appeared in Scranton and did several special challenges there. His brother, Hardeen, also appeared in Scranton and in its sister city, Wilkes-Barre. The longest engagement of Houdini's career was in this area of northeast Pennsylvania when he spent two full seasons with the Welsh Brothers Circus. Documents and letters attesting to this are on display in the museum's renovated 125-year-old building and on its website. Houdini performed at Sylvester Z. Poli's theater for in Scranton, which was part of the Keith-Albee-Orpheum circuit at the time. This would later become the RKO Pictures circuit.
The History Museum at the Castle is a local history museum located in downtown Appleton, Wisconsin across College Avenue from Lawrence University. Owned and operated by the Outagamie County Historical Society (OCHS), the museum has previously operated under the names The Outagamie Museum and The Houdini Historic Center. The building was earlier known as Masonic Temple. In 2018 the museum was a recipient of the 2018 National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the highest honor given to a museum or library in the United States.
Dick Brooks is a United States magician and entertainer. He began his career in show business at the age of 10, and since that time has worked in TV commercials, stand-up comedy, writing, children's entertainment, and army shows, and performed in night clubs, casinos, and magic venues. Focus Magazine described Brooks as a "magician of renown".
Magic, which encompasses the subgenres of illusion, stage magic, and close up magic, among others, is a performing art in which audiences are entertained by tricks, effects, or illusions of seemingly impossible feats, using natural means. It is to be distinguished from paranormal magic which are effects claimed to be created through supernatural means. It is one of the oldest performing arts in the world.
Modern Magic by Professor Hoffmann is a treatise in book form, first published in 1876, detailing the apparatus, methods and tricks used by the magicians and conjurors of that era. Hoffmann was considered to be one of the greatest authorities on the theory and practice of magic, despite his own limited professional experience as a magician.
The House of Houdini is a private exhibit and performance venue located at 11, Dísz Square, within the walls of the Buda Castle in Budapest, Hungary. The building houses the only collection of original Houdini artifacts in Europe.
The Fantasma Magic company was founded in December 2001 by Roger Dreyer and Mark Setteducati. Fantasma Magic is a manufacturer of magic tricks, magic sets, science-based toys and Rubik's items as well as other novelties. Fantasma Magic supplies magic tricks, specialty magic sets and other toys to retailers such as Costco, Toys R Us, Kmart, Walmart, Target and others.
John Wyman Jr., known professionally as Wyman the Wizard, was a magician and ventriloquist who was popular in the United States during the mid-19th century.
Curator Roger Dreyer, head of Fantasma Toys Inc., spent two decades and millions of dollars amassing the second-largest Houdini collection in the world, behind only magician David Copperfield's. But Dreyer had nowhere to display his prized items.
... I certainly knew the famous address -- "278" which is how Houdini always referred to his Harlem home.
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