San Francisco is an old, iron safe filled with gold, glory, disaster, and secrets. SFCentric History is a new column, by SF writer V. Alexandra de F. Szoenyi, that digs in the vaults of local history and shares the sensational people, places, and things that rocked San Francisco. Harry Houdini (born Erik

If your introduction to magic included Criss Angel’s “Mindfreak”, or Gob in “Arrested Development”, then you could be forgiven for mistaking magicians with, say, ice dancing competitors. But magic hasn’t always been synonymous with guyliner. During the 1920s, when Harry Houdini submerged himself, shackled, inside a chamber he dubbed the