HOUDINI, NYPD

Hark back with us now to those halcyon days of yesteryear - 1920 to be exact - when Tammany Hall's "Red Mike" Hylan was Mayor of New York, Al Smith was Governor, Jack Dempsey was heavyweight champion and Harry Houdini was the most famous man in the world.

As we promised we'd reveal, the famous picture above was taken in the summer of 1920, when jazz was king and Prohibition had just begun. Back then, the New York Police Department used to hold "Field Days," a kind of Olympic Games for cops, out at the Gravesend Race Track in Brooklyn. The Mayor and Governor were on the program, with a raft of boxing and wrestling champions, including Houdini, Dempsey and Benny Leonard, the lightweight champion shown here. (Oh, yes, Houdini was a boxing champ!)

As you can see from the official program above, the world's finest fighters squared off against one another out in Brooklyn, in what must surely be one of the greatest exhibition fight cards in history.
Houdini, ever the headliner, was in a class by himself.

The page above was inscribed to Harry's close friend and fellow book collector, Quincy Kilby.






(Images from Boston Public Library Rare Book Collection.)