Now you see it!
A rare collection of tools and tricks used by legendary magician Harry Houdini for seemingly inexplicable escape acts — including handcuffs and neck and leg shackles — are now on display a century after his death.
The quirky display is part of a new exhibit of over 300 rare and never-before-seen artifacts from magic’s heyday in the Big Apple that opened this month at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, dubbed Dubbed “Mystery & Wonder: A Legacy of Golden Age Magicians in New York City.”
The expansive display, fashioned to look like an early 20th century magic shop, also includes a massive wand collection, dramatic one-of-a-kind magic show posters and century-old instructional books.
Exhibit curator Annemarie van Roessel told The Post the mystical retrospective is the first of its kind to explore how magic knowledge was passed down in the city during magic’s “golden age” — whether behind the stage curtain, inside Midtown magic shops or meetings of the Society of American Magicians.
“There aren’t any professors of magic history: [Magicians] are responsible for building for their own history,” van Roessel told The Post at the show’s opening reception Wednesday.
Magicians — many of whom were immigrants from Europe, van Roessel noted — flocked to New York City during the ‘Golden Age’ from 1875 to the 1930s for its abundance of stages, magic stores and community hubs, she said.
The performers also helped facilitate the larger cultural exchange between artists in New York and London, which was also a hot spot for magicians at the time.
Steve Cohen, a sponsor of the exhibit and veteran magician who runs the 25-year-old Chamber Magic show at the Lotte New York Palace, said it’s a no-brainer why magicians are still flocking to the Big Apple as they did at the turn of the century.
“It’s the center of art,” he said. “When you come to New York, you expect to see the best.”
The core of the collection stems from Society of American Magicians co-founder Dr. Saram Ellison’s 1,500-book arsenal of rare books on magic, which where donated to the library around the time of his death in 1918 — including the first book on magic published in the US.
Contemporary magicians are still drawn to the library’s trove of magic literature and ephemera — considered to be the largest public collection of its kind — to reference old tricks and rediscover new ones, van Roessel said.
“The magicians come here to research their mentors, and their mentors’ mentors,” she added. “They also come because … some of the best tricks are the old tricks from 100 years ago.”
The library’s collection also includes one-of-a-kind posters from magic shows – preserved in a large scrapbook and untouched for decades — which were properly conserved at the height of the coronavirus pandemic and digitally displayed.
It was the posters’ massive reception among New York’s magic community that served as the launchpad for the exhibition — which, in many ways, is still a work in progress, the curator said.
Given the niche subject matter, several 20th century magicians’ faces in archival photographs are still unknown to the library — which has ushered a public call to current performers to help identify faces and names lost to time.
“Just helping identify some of the faces of these photographs has been critical,” van Roessel said. “We’re bringing them back from the dead almost — we’re bringing these memories to life.”
The curator noted she hopes the exhibit will help the likes of lesser-known names like “Queen of Magic” vaudeville performer Adelaide Herrmann to finally get the Houdini star treatment.
Cohen called the exhibit “vital” for the public to discover not just the legendary names, but a newfound appreciation for a timeless art form that’s finally getting its flowers.
“Hopefully what this exhibit will do is make people realize that magic has a rich history — but it’s a living history,” Cohen said.
“This exhibit gives magic the institutional recognition and respect that it’s always deserved.”