On This Day in History, April 4: Magic Moments for a Brooklyn Boy

April 4, 2012 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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Magician David Blaine was born in Brooklyn on April 4, 1973. He was encouraged by his mother, Petrie White, to become a master of magic. At the age of 4, he saw a magician perform in a subway and he decided to buy his first trick from a Disney shop — the pencil through the card trick.

He has since moved on to far more sophisticated and physically demanding tricks and has been called a modern-day Houdini.

On April 5, 1999, Blaine buried himself alive for a week under a 6-foot-deep Plexiglas tank filled with 4,000 pounds of water.

In November 2000, the media followed closely as Blaine froze himself in a block of ice for two days.

In May 2002, Blaine stood on a circular platform only 22 inches in diameter, 109 feet from the ground in Manhattan’s Bryant Park, for two days and two nights, with no food, water or sleep, and nothing to sit or lean on.

In one of his more recent stunts, in 2008, Blaine hung upside down without a safety net for 60 hours above Wollman Rink in Central Park.