Part Four: Muller’s Meats Leaves Centre Street
Once Muller’s Meats had moved from Centre Street in 1967, the Centre Street buildings really became an afterthought. Henry and Ferdinand were too busy at the new Muller’s Meats to focus on what to do with the Centre Street properties.
On Thursday, August 24, 1967, Henry was on a business trip in Ottawa, meeting with officials at the Canadian Department of Agriculture to try to convince them to give fast-track approval for the new plant. On his way back to his hotel room in Ottawa, Henry stopped in the hotel lobby and picked up a New York Times. On page 42 was a human-interest story with the headline Collection of Houdini Gear Is For Sale. It was about a man named Joseph Dunninger in New Jersey who had been a friend of Hardeen, Houdini’s brother. When Houdini passed away in 1926, he willed all of his paraphernalia to his brother Hardeen, with specific instructions that the paraphernalia be destroyed upon Hardeen’s death. This proviso was in Houdini’s will because he did not want people in the future to know how he did his stunts and tricks. However, after Houdini’s death, Hardeen needed money, and he sold everything to Joseph Dunninger. This article mentioned that all this paraphernalia was still in its original thirty-six theater trunks in a warehouse in New Jersey.
Henry had certainly heard the name Houdini, but he knew nothing about him. Henry knew nothing about magic. He knew nothing about curating a museum. He knew nothing about catering to the tourist trade. But he thought to himself, I could buy this collection and build a tourist attraction around it in the former Muller’s Meats Building on Centre Street.
