Magician David Copperfield Manhattan rooftop swimming pool spontaneously burst and flooded his apartment, seeping into others as far as 30 stories below.
Copperfield’s lawyer, Ted Blumberg, confirmed that a pump for the 57th-floor lap pool malfunctioned, sending water gushing through Copperfield’s four-story, greenhouse-like penthouse.
The water leaked to apartments down to the 20th floor, knocking out the tony tower’s elevators for more than a day following the March 8 flood. Copperfield was in Las Vegas at the time, where he performs a nightly MGM Grand show.
“David was terrified, because he has these rare, vintage Coney Island machines, which are priceless, irreplaceable antiques, including a fortune teller, strength testers, an electric shock machine and shooting galleries. But for some unknown reason — or stroke of luck — these machines were spared by the water. There’s a magic trick called ‘The Bullet Catch,’ where the illusionist catches the bullet in his teeth, and David thinks he really dodged a bullet here.”
Blumberg added that the pool will be refilled but not before fail-safe measures are put in place to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.
Copperfield bought the 8,000-square-foot pad at 117 E. 57th St. in 1997 for $7.4 million.