It feels a little tired to write about Houdini and Halloween, like a last resort. You know the basics: Houdini died in Detroit on Oct. 31, 1926, at Grace Hospital (demolished: 1979), after an Oct. 24 performance at the Garrick Theatre (demolished: 1928-29). The cause of his death was peritonitis, set on after an appearance in Montreal two days earlier, where he was punched by a fan who was trying to see for himself if Houdini really had an iron stomach. Do we know if the punches ruptured his appendix? We do not, but that’s the story we all grew up hearing about the death of Houdini. In Detroit!
His body was embalmed at the William R. Hamilton funeral home on Cass Ave., which has not been demolished, although it has been vacant forever. Then, his body was sent by train to New York, where he was buried at a Jewish cemetery in Queens.1
Houdini spent a lot of time in his life trying to debunk Spiritualism and its mediums and seances.2 How would Houdini feel about the fact that for this reason, people have been hosting seances specifically to try to stir up his spirit for nearly 100 years? So long as he continues to not show up for these seances, we’ll never know.
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