The Harry Houdini Story

Long before he was slipping out of handcuffs and water tanks, the world's most famous magician was a dirt poor Jew living here in the Upper East Side. And right behind me is where he lived. In the late 1800s, the northern part of the Upper East Side was not necessarily the most wealthy, but it was packed with German and Hungarian Jews trying to make a life for themselves here in America. So, what's so important about this block? In the late 1880s, a rabbi named Mayor Weiss moved right here to this block from Hungary. His son was named Eric, but you might know him as Harry Houdini. So, how did a poor Jewish immigrant become the world's most famous magician? He surrounded himself with pure American Jewish hustle. Eric took that hustle of this community right here of all these Jewish families really, really, really hustling to make a living. And not only did he do street magic on these very streets, but he practiced on that roof right there. The northern part of the Upper East Side was packed with Jews who had to hustle in order to survive. Eric took that exact hustle and practiced his slight of hand on these very streets here in the Upper East Side. In Judaism, we don't believe in magic. But what we do believe is the magic of community as the German and Hungarian Jews here poured all their resources into developing a community. The magic was the growth that Hashem provided them right here on these streets. and Harry and his father are perfect examples of how that Jewish magic truly thrived here in New York