Magician David Blaine made his long-awaited return to the living yesterday as he was unearthed after being buried seven days in a Plexiglas coffin.
Several hundred fans – including mentalist Uri Geller and the niece of famed escape artist Harry Houdini – cheered as the resurrected magician sat up, took his first breath of unfiltered New York air and laced on a pair of black sneakers before crediting his 75,000 visitors for enabling him to get through the “test of human endurance.”
“I suffered a little in here,” he said, pointing to the clear plastic casket that has been his home since he was interred April 5 at the Riverside South apartment complex on West 68th Street and Riverside Boulevard.
“But [looking up], I saw something very prophetic … a vision of every race, every religion, every age group banding together, and that made all this worthwhile.”
Although weak from his seven days without food and with only limited water, the 25-year-old Blaine was able to move under his own power to a waiting stretcher before being spirited to an unidentified private doctor.
Nearby, Freddy Schuman, best known as the city’s No. 1 Yankee fan, hoisted a handmade sign: “Wow! He’s Alive! He Looks O.K.! He’s a Superman!”
Blaine’s publicist was a little less hyperbolic.
“He’s a little dehydrated, but he’s in remarkably good condition. He’s quite weak and he’s lightheaded,” he said.
Blaine, whose taped special, “David Blaine: Magic Man,” airs tomorrow night on ABC, said he devised the “Buried Alive” stunt because his idol, Houdini, had been contemplating a similar feat before his death in 1926.
But yesterday, Houdini’s niece said the master escapist would not have survived seven days in the box.
“My uncle did some amazing things, but he could not have done this,” said Marie Blood. “He was so athletic and active that he wouldn’t have had the patience that David showed.”
But was it patience or a high-tech ruse? Considering that Blaine is best known for levitation – a physical impossibility – skeptics were convinced that the entire burial stunt was an elaborate illusion.
“I saw him move over on the right side of his crystal casket and substitute a mannequin in his place!” said Jeff Townsend.
Doubters were in the definite minority.
“At first, I doubted it, too,” said Ellen Natter, who visited Blaine every day.
“By the end, I felt close to him and came to admire him for achieving what he set out to achieve.”