Sunday, January 26, 2020

10th Anniversary: The Worcester YMCA pool test

As part of WILD ABOUT HARRY's 10th anniversary, I will post links back to significant stories from 2010 with a ten year follow up. Today I share the first of these flashbacks from January 26, 2010.

Houdini's famous Shelton Pool test is well known. But you'll barely find any mention of his second underwater endurance test performed at the Worcester YMCA a month later. So click the link below and travel back 10 years to read all about:

Uncovering Houdini’s SECOND underwater test

TEN YEAR UPDATE: This still remains a largely unknown Houdini stunt and the photo above is still the only known image. I wish I had more to share. But what I had 10 years ago is still pretty much all I know.


UPDATE: Reader Jay Hunter has provided four remarkable must see photos from this test, SO GO!

Related:
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10 comments:

  1. Leo HeviaJanuary 26, 2020 at 8:53 AM

    Don't remember that photo! Nice! After the Shelton Pool test you'd think HH would have quit while he was still ahead. Not the kind of stunt to continue repeating after he had made his point with the first test. Oxygen deprivation on a repeated basis can't be good for you. Unless he cheated and had an air line but I don't think so.

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    1. John CoxJanuary 26, 2020 at 9:24 AM

      Just the opposite. It was clearly going to become his new outdoor publicity stunt. But I don't think he planned to remain as long. The department store test he did in Worcester a few days later is, I believe, the model for what he would have done regularly. Very David Blaine!

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    2. Leo HeviaJanuary 26, 2020 at 10:06 AM

      Nuts!

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  2. Houdini & HardeenJanuary 26, 2020 at 10:56 AM

    Interesting, Blaine is called an "Endurance Artist". If Houdini was going to do this pool test as a regular publicity stunt it seems like he was also becoming an Endurance Artist. I see the influence on Blaine here.

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    1. John CoxJanuary 26, 2020 at 12:08 PM

      He was absolutely going in that direction. In fact, he was working on a frozen in ice idea that I bet would have looked a lot like Blaine's. Read the post on his Summerfield's test. Very much a David Blaine style stunt.

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    2. Leo HeviaJanuary 26, 2020 at 3:56 PM

      Actually Blaine did a Houdini style stunt, who thought of long before he was born.

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    3. John CoxJanuary 26, 2020 at 4:18 PM

      Right. :)

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    4. Leo HeviaJanuary 26, 2020 at 5:07 PM

      The Summerfield's test--just re-read that--a great post! It appears to solve the mystery of that coffin photo. Not a HH laying in state, but his third coffin test. The precursor to Blaine's month in a large plexiglass box.

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    5. John CoxJanuary 26, 2020 at 5:17 PM

      I keep going back and forth on that pic. I just don't know now. It could be dead Harry.

      Speaking of pics, I have a BIG treat in store for us tomorrow. :)

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  3. John CoxJanuary 27, 2020 at 8:32 AM

    Jay Hunter has provided four remarkable unseen photos from this test HERE. Thanks Jay!

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