by M.E.Maciolek
If you should pass by a graveyard on the Jackie Robinson Parkway, in Queens, New
York: don’t hold your breath. There is two and half miles of “Queens’ Cemetery Belt”
ahead of you, a burial ground so immense it is visible from space. It looks like a set
from “Salem's Lot” or a “Twilight” movie. “The Queens Cemetery Belt” is a massive
stretch of land that claims at least 5 million interred in its soil. In fact, it is said that there
are more deceased residents of Queens than living ones! Originally designed for horse
drawn carriages so that New Yorkers could travel to and picnic in the cemeteries, it was
years later paved for automobiles and remains one of the most dangerous stretches of
highways in New York. The ominous reputation is due to the curves of the road, which
were meant to be traversed by horse, not horsepower.
Here, surrounded by an ocean of headstones and rusting antique iron fences is a
forgotten dilapidated cemetery, it is the modest Machpelah Cemetery. This Jewish burial
ground makes up only a small fraction of the sprawling necropolis, but it is arguably the
creepiest graveyard in the entire city.
Cramped centenarian tombstones muster in rows on the hilly plot-the place is rundown
and deserted, but one grave is consistently well-maintained. It’s the monument of
Machpelah’s most famous "resident,” master escape artist and magician Harry Houdini.
The cemetery is a dream destination for graveyard ghouls on a chilly October night,
especially since Halloween marks the anniversary of Houdini’s untimely death.
Erich Weisz was born on March 24, 1874, in Budapest, Hungary. His family moved to
the United States when he was 4 years old. He died Harry Houdini on Halloween 1926
in Detroit by a punch to his appendix. In between he made a international name for
himself by becoming more magician than magician and elevating himself to the level of
greatest escape artist the world has ever known.
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