When vandals destroyed Houdini's gravesite in 1993, the Society of American Magicians (SAM), raised money for its restoration, including $15,000 from the famous magician, David Copperfield. North Barre Granite was asked to replicate the original 1927 benches, which was accomplished by combining pieces of granite to make it look as if they were from one piece. This provided an affordable alternative for restoring the site.

Newsday reported the story on December 21, 1996:

Magic Moment - Homage to Houdini by present-day prestidigitator
By Avital Louria Hahn

Like a disciple returning to visit a beloved mentor, magician David Copperfield yesterday paid his respects at the Glendale grave site of the world's most famous escape artist, Harry Houdini.

Copperflield, who helped pay for a recent restoration of Houdinl's vandalized grave in Machpelah Cemetery, spent about a half-hour in the frigid cold at the grave plot of Houdini's family. Dressed in blue jeans and a long winter coat, he walked slowly from gravestone to gravestone and squatted beside Houdini's grave.

"It was a tragedy," Copperfield said of the vandalism which defaced several graves in the family plot in 1993. They just damaged the whole thing."

Copperfield, 40, perhaps the world's best known contemporary magician, gave $15,000 to the Society of American Magicians (SAM), the organization which Houdini helped to expand nationally in the early 1900s and which now oversees upkeep of his grave.

John Bohannon, chairman of SAM's Houdini Committee, said he telephoned Copperfield and asked for his help after the most recent desecration.

"Without his help we couldn't have done it," Bohannon said in a telephone interview.

The Weiss family grave site, where Houdini, born Ehrich Weiss, his parents, grandmother and six siblings are buried, has been desecrated several times, the last time in 1993 when two stone benches were defaced and headstones removed or damaged.

A white marble bust of the escape artist that adorned the magician's memorial since 1927, a year after Houdini's death, was stolen on one occasion, and the busts that replaced it also were taken.

The new bust is made of a marble-like compound which looks exactly like the original.

Copperflield's donation, along with $2,000 from the escape artist James Randi, and $8,000 in donations from magicians all over the world, paid for replacement of two granite benches vandalized in 1993 and for the casting of a permanent Houdini bust that is used at observances commemorating Houdini. The cemetery also contributed to restoring the family plot and prepared concrete bases for the new benches.

Copperfield said that only recently has he "developed a passion" for the man considered by many to be history's ultimate magician.

Now he has an extensive collection of magic memorabilia, which includes Houdini's handcuffs, his baby shoes, and a treasure trove of writings and correspondence.

Houdini, said Copperfield, was a good marketing guy, a good publicist."

As for his tricks, Copperfield, who plans and designs all of his own escape acts and illusions, alluded to knowing Houdini's secrets. I have most of his writings in my files," he said.

For years. fellow magicians had visited Houdini's grave on Halloween. the day Houdini died, to pay tribute to the artist who put magic on the entertainment map.

Traditionally, the group would gather at 1:20 p.m., and at 1:24, one of the magicians would begin a ceremony called the "Ritual of the Broken Wand," which was created after Houdini's death. At precisely 1: 26 - the time that Houdini died in 1926 - a wooden wand would be broken in half, signifying the end of a magician's powers and his death. Then, a rabbi would say Kaddish.

For the past several years. bowever. the ceremony has not been held on Halloween. Machpelah Cemetery operator David Jacobson has closed the cemetery to visitors on Halloween. "Halloween is a day that traditionally invites acts of vandalism," Jacobsen said, adding that he has responsibility for protecting the entire cemetery.

Because of the closure, SAM members have observed Houdini's death according to the Jewish calendar, always a few days before or after Halloween.

Just as Houdini visited other magicians' gravesites, and often paid for their restoration whenever they showed signs of neglect, Copperfield returned the favor in the spirit of magicians' brotherhood.

"I wanted to do it right," the master magician said. "Maybe some day someone will do it for me."