Woodlawn Cemetery
Bronx, New York, United States
A National Historic Landmark cemetery holding the densest row of magicians and spiritualists graves in America, including Houdinis, and an annual magician tribute at his stone.
Woodlawn is one of America's great garden cemeteries, and its esoteric distinction is specific: it holds the largest concentration of magicians' and spiritualists' graves in the country. Harry Houdini, the Herrmann magic dynasty, and performers of the golden age of stage magic lie in a compact area, and the magical community treats the ground as an anchor: the annual Houdini tribute (the Society of American Magicians' ceremony, a broken wand service) is a real, continuing devotional event at his grave.
The Spiritualist-movement burials here belong to the same era that built the camps at Lily Dale and Cassadaga, and the graveyard reading is genuine material: symbols, epitaphs, and a community's memory of what it believed about life after death.
Visiting
Webster Ave and E 233rd St, Bronx; open daily; see thewoodlawncemetery.org. The magician's walk is documented on their maps.
Photo: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Woodlawn_Cemetery_Bronx_008.jpg), CC BY-SA.
Associated traditions & practices
Traditions from this region
Traditions historically rooted in this region — offered as background context, not as a claim about this particular place.
Visitor stories