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Magician Harry Houdini died at age 52 on Halloween night at Detroit's Grace Hospital after collapsing while performing at the Garrick Theater in Detroit.
His body was embalmed at the W. R. Hamilton and Company Funeral Home on Cass Avenue, then shipped by train to New York.
The funeral home is seriously deteriorating, reports Steve Neavling of Motor City Muckraker. It has been vacant about eight years.
Sadly, the funeral home and the adjacent building, which was built as a mortuary space in 1930, have been neglected and abandoned for years. Lightning struck the funeral home on Oct. 1, causing a fire and creating a hole in the roof.
No one has repaired the hole, so rain water is damaging the third floor.
The buildings, which have been owned by the nonprofit Art Center Music School since 1981, are two years behind on property taxes, records show. The owners, who are board members of the now-defunct school, have ignored city orders to clean up the buildings, which are at the corner of Cass and W. Alexandrine.
