WILD ABOUT HARRY: Nicola The Handcuff King

John Cox has a piece on Nicola The Handcuff King over on his site. Please check it out. Years ago I thought about doing a book on Nicola because his story needs to be told. I'm not sure if one has been done yet, but I'll probably do my own Nicola blog down the road focusing on his magic rather than escapes. Until then, please enjoy the WildAboutHarry Blog and check out the links, they are worth it for the photos!

WILD ABOUT HARRY: Nicola The Handcuff King: "Nicola was a successful big stage illusionist in the mode of Thurston, Blackstone, and Dante. But early in his career he dabbled in escape, ..."

Hammerstein's Victoria and Rooftop Garden

Hammerstein's Victoria and Roof Garden. The Republic Theatre is to the left.

Houdini performed at Hammerstein's many times. I decided recently to try and dig up information on this historic location. I discovered that Hammerstein's Victoria opened in 1899 as a legit theatre. However, it did not have a single broadway hit, so in 1904 it was turned into a variety theatre and became the leading Vaudeville house in NYC until the Palace Theatre was built.

Hammerstein's was unique in that it had an indoor theatre and a roof top theatre that allowed for summer performances. Back at the turn of the century there was no air conditioning and the theatres would often close during the summer months.  Others that tried to remain open would get brutally hot inside. Hammerstein's Roof Garden encompassed the roof of his theatre and the Republic Theatre next door. Incidentally, Oscar Hammerstein built the Republic Theatre as well but leased it out.

The theatre was at the corner of West 42nd St. and 7th Avenue. During Matinees at Hammersteins the ticket prices were .25 and .50 cents. In the evenings the prices ranged from .25 cents to $1.00. There were around 1000 seats, and I'm not sure what the roof garden held. A few of the acts that graced the stages at Hammersteins include; Eva Fay (daughter of Anna Eva Fay), Mae West, W.C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, Eva Tanguay, Evelyn Nesbitt, the Four Cohans, and of course Houdini.

Location of Heidelberg Building

Hammerstein's plays an important roll in the career of Houdini. In 1912, Houdini was the headliner on the bill. Also on that same bill from Jan 29-Feb 3rd was comedy/satirist Will Rogers. A few months later in July 1912 Houdini was back. To promote his appearance he presented an outdoor escape. Reports say he was tied to the tower of the Heidelberg Building in Times Square. The New York Times says that after the escape he tossed the rope down to the crowd. However, other reports say he was placed in a straight jacket and hung upside down over the edge of the Heidelberg Building. He was going to repeat one of these stunts from the fire escape of the Victoria, but the police intervened. The Heidelberg Building stood at 1459 Broadway and was renamed the Crossroads Building and eventually torn down in 1984. Today the Times Square Tower stands in the same location. (see photo left) One other thing of note in regards to this stunt on the Heidelberg Building, the New York Times reported there was a movie camera there. Ifs this footage exists today, we would know for sure exactly what he did, and we'd also have more valuable film footage of Houdini.

Also in July 1912 (he must have been driving the police crazy) Houdini was using his overboard packing case escape from the East River to excite people about his appearances at Hammersteins Victoria. He also did the feat in the theatre. A previous act had a large tank of water in the theatre and Houdini used it to recreate the underwater packing escape, it was just as big a hit indoors as it was outdoors.

In 1914 Houdini debuted is Walking Through a Brick Wall Illusion at Hammersteins. There is an interesting write-up in Variety Newspaper July 18, 1914 that says "some of the acts here have worn out the welcome mat. Houdini, however, proves an exception to the rule, and this P.T. Barnum of vaudeville is still a factor." They were were referring to his brand new Walking Through a Brick Wall Illusion and even go on to report an incident that took place between Houdini and Brick Layers Union.
Apparently the union brick layers had taken issue with Houdini because he was using a 'dry brick' system on his brick wall, meaning there was no mortar. The brick layers challenged Houdini to allow them to use mortar on the wall and then see if he could pass through, they did and he did.

There are precious few photos of Houdini and his Brick Wall. I find it hard to believe that he did not create a poster for this. To my knowledge no poster exists for this nor the Vanishing Elephant. But unlike the Vanishing Elephant which was presented as part of another show, this was Houdini's appearance at the Hippodrome and it also wasn't the only place he performed the Walking Through a Brick Wall Illusion. So maybe out there somewhere is a Walking Through a Brick Wall poster! One can only hope.

Houdini must have been one of the last big named acts to play Hammersteins Victoria because in 1915 the theatre was torn down. The competition from the new Palace Theatre down the street was too much for them.

It was not easy locating Hammersteins today. For one, it's right near Times Square and I was very confused trying to figure out which building was which. But then I discovered a clue. In the photo at the top of the page you'll see Hammersteins sitting on the corner. Then to the left of Hammersteins is a smaller theatre called The Republic. Well, I know Hammerstein's was torn down in 1915. The Republic was renamed The New Victory Theatre. The New Victory, which once was the Republic Theatre and had part of the Roof Garden Theatre on it's rooftop is still there. Of course, after all this searching I found that the address was WEST 42nd St. and that would have been a big help at the start.

Houdini Speaks from the Dead!?

January 8th, 1929, eighty two years ago today, Houdini speaks to Bess for the first time since his death in 1926. He speaks, or apparently speaks through medium Arthur Ford of the First Spiritualist Church of New York at Bess's home on Payson Avenue with several witnesses present. Eleven months before on February 8th, 1928, Ford provided the first word from Houdini to Bess, 'Forgive'.

Bess Houdini's NY home on Payson Avenue

Now at just after noon on January 8th,  the curtains were drawn in Bess's living room and Arthur Ford went into a trance. His spirit guide Fletcher begins to speak and says that 'Houdini is here'. Using the code that Bess and Harry used in their mind reading act, a series of words are given which spelled out "Rosabelle, Believe". This is the agreed upon message! Houdini has spoken from the dead and finished with "Tell the world Sweetheart that Harry Houdini Lives and will prove it a thousand times!" and that ended the seance.

The only problem was between Bess being ill and doped up on medications and Ford having learned the code and the words previously, it was all a big fraud. Bess believed it though but later with help from friends, learned that she had been deceived.

She did say something interesting just two days after the seance. She issued a challenge of her own to her detractors. She claimed that there were two more messages in the same code that were stored in a bank vault. One of those messages is for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the other for Remegius Weiss of Philadelphia. "I consider it a fit challenge to ask the magicians and psychics who doubt the genuineness of my message to bring either or both of these through!". Suffice to say, those didn't come through, nor did Houdini speak from the dead a thousand times, like he said he would at the seance.

This bank was the Manufacturers Bank on Fifth Avenue and in the safety deposit box that Bess had there, it contained the envelope with her agreed upon message with Harry, plus two other envelopes as mentioned above.  The envelopes were never taken from the bank and shown to reporters. Bess's attorney claimed these never existed. Did they?

Many people have come out to denounce Arthur Ford and the seance. Early on it was Joseph Dunninger who showed Bess just how Ford could have learned the code. Dash Hardeen, Houdini's brother, said it was all nonsense from the start. The last person to really get involved in the 'Code Debate' was William Rauscher, minister, magician and literary executor to Arthur Ford. He put out a book called "The Houdini Code" which pretty much shows that it was all faked. 

Now here are a couple interesting things to add to the January 8th history lesson. January 8, 1898 was the day that Houdini made his debut as a Spiritualist Performer in Galena Kansas. He began by presenting his version of the Spirit Cabinet. He followed this with relaying messages from the dead to the theatre audience. And to add another dimension of strangeness of the 8th, the Reverend Arthur Ford was born on January 8th, 1896. It's also Elvis's birthday, but I'm not sure that has anything to do with it, lol.

Pretty weird though.. If that isn't strange enough, why not listen to the OTHER SIDE of the debate. This is the side that says, 'the detractors and the debunkers were lying'.  I'm not saying believe it, but it makes for interesting reading.
http://www.ial.goldthread.com/houdini.html

Do Spirits Return? IF they could, would they really want to? As for Houdini, if he did come back, he only did once and forgot the 1000 other times he mentioned! (hmmm, not like Houdini to do that)