Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times  THE COLLECTOR Rory Feldman of Brooklyn has surrounded himself with mementos of Howard Thurston, the magician.  “PICK a card, any card,” Rory Feldman instructed a visitor as he stood in the living room of his Brooklyn apartment and held out a well-thumbed deck.  Mr. Feldman lives with his mother, Suzanne Feldman. She doesnât mind the magic theme. Howard Thurston, she says, is âlike a member of my family.â  The visitor chose the three of clubs. Mr. Feldman tore off one corner, marked the back of the card with an X and the visitor’s initials, and folded it into a tiny square. He clenched the card in his fist. Seconds later, the marked card reappeared on a nearby shelf, inside a worn brown leather wallet with the name Howard Thurston embossed in gold.  The spirit of Thurston, a turn-of-the-last-century illusionist who called himself “the world’s greatest magician,” looms powerfully over this room. From colorful vintage posters that line the walls, a somber-faced man with sensitive dark eyes stares down at Mr. Feldman, as if silently urging him on. Thurston’s image is refracted endlessly in hundreds of photographs and programs that fill floor-to-ceiling display cabinets, as if the living room were a funhouse of mirrors.  When people think of the golden age of magic — the late 19th and early 20th centuries — the name Harry Houdini very likely comes to mind, along with a mental picture of a muscular man untangling himself from a prison of chains. But in Mr. Feldman’s opinion, magic’s true virtuoso was a largely forgotten Midwesterner whose act was routinely described as “the wonder show of the universe” and whose proficiency with cards was second to none.  “Houdini, who was primarily an escape artist, was impressive but no rival,” said Mr. Feldman, a 29-year-old magician and passionate collector of all things Thurston. “Thurston, though, was the master of his craft. He was a superstar — everyone who saw him said so. They said he was likable, funny, that he loved his audience. He performed for crippled children.”  Thurston was born in 1869 in Columbus, Ohio, and died in Miami in 1936 at age 66. But if any place honors his memory — and that’s putting it mildly — it is this two-bedroom apartment on East 17th Street, in a neighborhood officially known as Homecrest but described by many residents as Midwood.  Here Mr. Feldman has established a shrine to his idol. The living room is dominated by his collection of 18,000 items — props, costumes, programs, instructional manuals — arranged in custom-built oak and mahogany display cabinets, one of which extends the entire length of one wall. More than 100 fat scrapbooks are stuffed with photographs, lithographs, archival material and ephemera.  Mr. Feldman shares the apartment with his mother, Suzanne, who moved in as a young bride in 1974. Less than a decade later, when he was 31, her husband died, leaving Ms. Feldman with two young sons, Rory, 2, and Morgan, 4. She stayed in the apartment, for which she now pays $1,475 in rent, and so did her younger boy. As he explained: “I grew up here and I love it. Besides, I’m so used to the area.”  Not every mother would relish sharing her home with a long-dead illusionist. But Ms. Feldman insists that over the years she has grown fond of the individual who is virtually a third member of the household.  “Years ago, of course, the living room was decorated differently,” said Ms. Feldman, who teaches prekindergarten in the very classroom where her younger son was a pupil nearly a quarter of a century ago. “But Rory’s collection gives the room such appeal. All the colors, and Thurston wearing all the different expressions. He’s like a member of my family. And of course Rory is a walking encyclopedia.”  Mr. Feldman was 3 when he received a Fisher-Price magic set as a gift and discovered what would be his life’s passion. By age 8 he was earning as much as $100 a gig for performing at birthday parties; his mother used to drive him to his events. He began collecting apparatus, and as he started buying and selling seriously, Thurston became his favorite magician.  Along with his mother, and of course Thurston, a fixture in the apartment is Mr. Feldman’s longtime girlfriend, a book editor named Cara Bedick, who spends much of her free time there.  “We’ve been together for 11 years,” he said, gesturing around him and adding, “She’s very understanding of all the baggage I bring to the relationship.”  Mr. Feldman is quick to acknowledge that not everyone lives like this.  “I realize my collection takes over the apartment,” he said. “But my mom’s so supportive. She sees such a passion. And if she doesn’t like a particular item, we just hide it.”
The Brooklyn apartment where Rory Feldman lives is a wall-to-wall tribute to the late, great magician Howard Thurston.