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THE HOUDINI GRAVE
To my left, across the street, is an enormous graveyard crammed with headstones and grand monuments, many of which are defaced with graffiti. A black, weatherworn, wrought-iron fence standing about eight feet high surrounds the sacred place. At last, I've reached my destination: Machpelah Cemetery in Cypress Hills, Queens, New York—the resting place of Harry Houdini and his family. I enter the burial ground thinking, "I can't believe the legendary Houdini is buried in such a run-down neighborhood." But I guess things were a lot different in those days. I wander through the maze of the granite city until I find myself facing the back of a large monument that carries the following inscription: "ERECTED BY | HOUDINI | 1916 | IN SACRED MEMORY | OF HIS | BELOVED PARENTS" (vertical bars indicate line breaks).
The names "HOUDINI" and "WEISS" are etched on the face of the pedestal, just below the seal of the Society of American Magicians (SAM), a circular mosaic about ten inches in diameter. Although Houdini was president of the SAM until his death in 1926, the person who originally etched the stone had mistakenly carved "1927" instead of "1926" on the area above the mosaic. Now the inscription reads, "President - 1917-1926," with the six overlapping the inaccurate seven. Atop the pedestal, where there should be a Houdini bust, is nothing. In April 1975, vandals smashed the original cast. Perhaps the same fate befell the replacement busts.
The plaque on the monument's right end honors Houdini's father, with Hebrew script engraved on the first seven lines, followed by: "Sacred to the Memory of | Our Dearly Beloved | Husband and Father | REV. DR. MAYER SAMUEL | WEISS | Rabbi & Teacher in Israel | Born | Aug. 27, 1829 | Died | Oct. 5, 1892 | R.I.P." In front of the main shrine itself, nine headstones occupy a small, rectangular plot of land that extends about twenty feet from the monument itself: Father (1829-1892), Mother (1841-1913), Herman (1863-1885), Grandmother (1821-1887), Dr. Leopold Weiss (ND), C. Gladys Weiss (ND), Theo. Hardeen (1876-1945), Nathan (1870-1927), and one stone for Houdini (1874-1926) and beloved wife Wilhelmina Beatrice (1876-19××). Bess is not buried in this plot. She rests in the Gate of Heaven Cemetery, also in New York. Why? Because she was Catholic, not Jewish, and the Machpelah Cemetery would not allow the interment of someone outside of the Jewish faith. This is in spite of the fact that Houdini stipulated in his will that he wanted Bess buried beside him. So there you have it, a brief description of Houdini's gravesite. If you ever have the chance to go, take advantage of it. Although it's not the most uplifting trip you'll ever take, it's the closest you'll ever get to the world's greatest escape artist, showman, and self-promoter—a man whose life was transformed into a myth, and whose death symbolizes an inevitable reality from which no one can escape. 
Related Quotes from Houdini: A Mind in Chains Page 9 "When [Houdini] bought a family burial plot in the Machpelah Cemetery in Long Island, he did not fail to take satisfaction in the discovery that a famous magician, Antonio Blitz, who had once performed for President Lincoln, was buried but a few hundred yards away." Page 18
Page 28 "Dr. Leopold Weiss, who, allegedly for having married the divorced wife of an older brother, became the hated object of Houdini's undying wrath, and was ostracized not only from Houdini's world in life but also from his own placement in the Machpelah Cemetery plot in death." Page 36 "Like Bonaparte assigning the thrones of Europe to privileged relatives and loyal favorites, Houdini ruled the Machpelah plot as if it were a personal fief or an exclusive club, admission to which waited on his pleasure. After naming his wife, his Hungarian-born brothers, Nathan and William, and his American-born siblings, Theodore and Gladys, as eligible for burial in this exalted piece of ground—while pointedly omitting Leopold and Sadie—the will expressly set out to separate all his married brothers from their wives, for it clearly stipulated that 'no member of the respective families of my said brothers and sisters, nor any other person or persons whatsoever, shall be buried in the said plot.' In seeking to account for this arbitrary dictate it should be noted that, aside from Sadie, it could apply only to the wives of his brothers William and Theodore. Religion was certainly not the issue, for although these sisters-in-law were Christian, Houdini had specified that his Catholic wife Bess was eligible for burial in the family plot. Indeed the only credible motive for excluding the wives of William and Theodore was malice, a spiteful reflection of a lifelong antagonism toward 'outsiders.' " Page 39
Page 81 "The search for a family burial plot became an issue of major importance, prompting his wife to record the 'somber pleasure' he seemed to experience while 'shopping around' for a satisfactory site. At last, on August 15, 1904, Houdini found a suitable one in the Machpelah Cemetery in Queens, New York, and on the following day he bought it for $450. Two days later his diary records he had the bodies of his father and his half-brother Herman dug up and reburied in the new plot. Evidently he took a good look at the proceedings, for like a latter-day Hamlet, he wrote: 'Saw all that was left of poor father and Herman: nothing but skull and bones.' To which he added, with evidently greater care for dentition than devotion, 'Herman's teeth were in splendid condition.' " Page 175
Page 178 "As recently as April 10, 1975, his name burst into the newspapers again, when it was reported that his stone bust, dominating the exedra in the family burial plot in the Machpelah Cemetery, had been smashed to pieces, evidently by a sledge hammer. Although neither the perpetrator of this act of vandalism nor its motive was identified, it offers renewed affirmation of the enduring vitality of his spirit and of his unfailing ability to rouse the public passion." SOURCE: Houdini: A Mind in Chains: A Psychoanalytic Portrait, by Bernard C. Meyer, M.D., 1976.
Related Web Pages Findagrave.com/Houdini
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As I walk along the crumbling cement sidewalk, tiny bits of glass from broken beer bottles crackle beneath my feet.
I stroll around the left of the shrine to view it from the front. The granite, semicircular structure is impressive—about twelve feet wide. Three shallow steps lead up to a curved stone bench, upon which sits a large pedestal designed to hold Houdini's bust. Just in front of the bench, at the base of the pedestal, is a life-sized statue of a small woman on her knees mourning.
"Even Houdini's funerary monument, which, though dedicated to his parents, is crowned by his own sculpted head, seems to have been inspired, in part at least, by an example associated with the memory of Robert-Houdin. On December 6, 1905, the French Society of Magicians celebrated the 100th anniversary of the birth of Robert-Houdin at the Théâtre Robert-Houdin in Paris. Among other events, a poem in honor of the master was read, at the close of which a bust of Robert-Houdin, which stood upon the stage, was crowned with a wreath of laurel. Kneeling below Houdini's bust in the Machpelah Cemetery is a Pietà-like figure, holding in her hand a chiseled laurel wreath."
"Nothing so succinctly epitomized the fulfillment of this dream of imperial station as his flamboyant design for the costly exedra he had constructed in the Machpelah Cemetery, supposedly in honor of his parents. There, in its geometrical center, towering above the gravestones of his parents, his grandmother, his five brothers, his sister, and himself, he planned the placement of his marble bust, flanked on either side by a stone column dedicated to his parents. In this majestic semicircle he possessed a pediment that surely he had always coveted, a seat chiseled in imperishable stone, from which he might preside like the majestic sovereign he sought to be in life, unthreatened by the claims of competitors and impervious to the intrusion of outsiders."
"[Houdini] was laid to rest in the same bronze coffin he had purchased as a prop for his submersion stunt and which he had recently told Dunninger he had acquired to contain his dead body. In accordance with his own instructions, he was interred in the family plot in the Machpelah Cemetery: 'My body is to be embalmed and buried,' he directed in chapter nineteen of his will, 'in the same manner in which my beloved mother was buried upon her death, and my grave [is to] be constructed in the same manner as my beloved mother's last resting place was constructed for her burial, and I also direct that I shall be buried in the grave immediately alongside that of my dear departed mother.' "