HOUDINI, DETECTIVE

Library of Congress

We recently found this mysterious photo salted away in the cavernous Houdini archives of the Library of Congress. It shows Harry Houdini lecturing to detectives and uniformed officers of the New York Police Department. But where? When? And why? The Library specialists did not know. Calls to the NYPD Museum and NYPD historians produced no info whatsoever.

Thanks to a series of clues unearthed at the Washington Symposium on Magic History, we solved the mystery. The clues (which we’ll describe in detail in a future post) led us to this: a 1925 issue of Popular Science.

Inside, Houdini writes detailed descriptions of various ghostbusting adventures. 

In the article, Harry introduces us to his friend Richard Enright, the first street cop ever to be elevated to the post of New York Police Commissioner.

Commissioner Enright in his office c. 1925                                                               (via Police NY)

Harry then takes us to the location in the picture at the top: the Police Academy.

400 Broome Street, site of the Police Academy in the '20s                                             (via Police NY)

Houdini writes:

Early last summer Police Commissioner Enright, of New York, asked me to lecture at the New York Police Academy, to explain to the members of the police force just how to go about detecting fraudulent mediums. The best and most direct way that occurred to me of doing this was by staging a séance, performing myself the tricks that the mediums use.

After a little hocus pocus to add solemnity to the occasion - my séance by the way, was performed in broad daylight - the "spirit" with which I alleged I had established communication asked:

"Is Lieutenant Smith of the Eighteenth Precinct here?"

Much mystified, the lieutenant acknowledged his presence.

"I," said the "spirit," talking through me, of course, "am the spirit of John Brown, whom you saved from drowning at the foot of East Ninety-First Street in 1920. I want to thank you for that and congratulate you on your promotion. There'll be another promotion coming to you soon. Tell your boy Joe not to worry about his examinations; he's going to pass. And tell your wife not to worry about the baby. The little girl will get through the hot weather all right."

Lieutenant Smith had never spoken to me in his life, nor I to him, so naturally he was thunderstruck when the "spirit" singled him out from the big crowd of policemen present to tell him all this.

No doubt you, too, would be similarly astounded were I - or a medium - to tell you something similar under similar conditions. And yet there is nothing astounding about it. I was able to call that lieutenant by name because I had learned his name from one of his brother officers. I was able to tell him about the rescue because the same officer had told me about it.

My informant also told me the Lieutenant Smith had been promoted recently, that he was married, and the he had a boy of 12 and an infant daughter. Inasmuch as the schools were scheduled to close for the summer in a couple of weeks, it was easy for me to guess that Joe was worried about passing his examinations. And since summer was coming on, I was quite safe in assuming that Mrs. Smith, like every other mother I've ever met, would be concerned about how her baby was going to stand the hot weather.

Simple, isn't it? Yet how mystifying when you're not in on the secret!

A favorite dodge of the mediums, that one! Almost invariably they work it on newcomers to their séances. Sometimes the surprising personal details related by the "spirit" are supplied by the spiritualist’s friend who has introduced the visitor, for spiritualists like to make converts, and if they can do so by helping the medium in his trickery, they'll do it.

Harry had many adventures with the NYPD which have never been reported. Here’s an undated, unsourced example, sketched out in a single Broadway newspaper column but never amplified, as far as we can determine. Calling all Houdiniphiles and police mavens! Any clues?

RELATED:

HOUDINI THE SPY

HOUDINI, MENTALIST

HOUDINI & BATMAN

HOUDINI & BATMAN, CONT'D






(Images from Library of Congress or Google Images, unless otherwise credited)