7/31/2023 0 Comments Harry houdini mansion headstone![]() Machpelah’s imposing 1928 entrance building on Cypress Hills Street deteriorated with the cemetery’s decline, its offices ransacked and the cemetery’s records scattered around the inside, and was demolished in 2013. ” Today the six-acre cemetery is administered by David Jacobson, who operates several of the city’s smaller Jewish burial grounds, and is well kept though timeworn and frequently deserted-burials are now rare at Machpelah Cemetery. Location of the four cemeteries today (OpenStreetMap) Machpelah Cemetery A 1959 view of the recently-demolished entrance building at Machpelah Cemetery (NYC Municipal Archives)Īn 1881 cemetery guide describes Machpelah Cemetery, which was established around 1855, as “a Jewish burial place of age and renown,” located “on high, sandy ground, that is well wooded and shaded,” “a handsome place and well laid out, and well cared for.” By the late 1980s, the cemetery had been abandoned to the state because its board had run out of money and its grounds had become a neglected “impassable jungle. Newspaper reports and property records often confuse the cemeteries and their ownership as well. The communal nature of the four cemeteries has frequently led to mix-ups in burial records, obituaries, and other accounts regarding which cemetery an individual was actually interred in. This shared history can be seen in the fact that there are no fences separating the cemeteries from one another-the grounds run together and a visitor entering the gate of one cemetery may wander down a path and suddenly find him or herself in one of the adjoining cemeteries without realizing it. Although each of these cemeteries has its own entrance and is separately owned today, early in their history they were managed cooperatively by Machpelah Cemetery Association. Jointly, these cemeteries-Machpelah Cemetery, Union Field Cemetery, New Union Field Cemetery, and Hungarian Union Field Cemetery-now cover about 60 acres where over 60,000 individuals have been interred. He fell in love with the landscape and the people, and he never left.A 1913 map showing Machpelah and the Union Field cemeteries situated west of Fresh Pond Road (Cypress Hills Street) and north of Cypress Hills Road (Cypress Avenue)īeginning in the 1850s, a number of Jewish organizations began to acquire large tracts of land along Fresh Pond Road and Cypress Hills Road in Queens to create what would become four cemeteries situated on present-day Cypress Hills Street and Cypress Avenue in the Glendale-Ridgewood area. He came to northern Arizona in the early '80s to pursue a career in journalism. "No matter how related I am to Houdini, my horses don't care and my dogs don't care," George says. But that didn't matter to them, because I'm the guy that's got the DNA."Īnd then the guy with the DNA - who seance attendees say looks an awful lot like Houdini - went home to Tuba City, Ariz., on the Navajo Nation. ![]() That was a bit strange for George Hardeen, because admittedly, he knows little about his great-uncle. ![]() "And I think that's the purpose of these seances - to give an opportunity for folks to come back and talk about Houdini," he says. They would beseech him to just show a sign, move something on the table."Īfter about half an hour, he says, "they threw in the towel, and then it was over." The group went to a really nice bar, drank some scotch and just talked. "They had a medium, and he was very entertaining, calling upon Houdini in a very dramatic way. They had some articles that belonged to Houdini," he says. "The Houdini legacy has taken a new branch," says Hardeen, "because my wife is Navajo, and my children are enrolled members of the Navajo Nation." George Hardeen is shown with his wife, Lena Fowler, and one of his three children, Shonie Fowler Hardeen.
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