Torres taught a student to perform a little drama while going through a trick. (Credit: Hope Zhu)
On a Sunday afternoon, in a borrowed classroom at Lehman College, Eddie Torres set a deck of cards on a folding table surrounded by 13 kids. He asked them to pick one while he looked away.
Eleven-year-old Ananya Bankoussou chose the four of clubs, flashed it around, and slid it back into the deck. Torres, a professional magician, turned away, shuffled, then revealed a five of diamonds.
“Is this your card?”
“No,” Ananya said, flatly.
Torres squinted, pretending to fume. “No?” He hurled the card high towards the wall. “Look up.”
Thirteen heads craned back. The four of clubs had stuck, six feet up.
The room erupted. “How did you do that?” the kids yelled.
Ananya folded her arms, unconvinced. “It’s science.”
“You’ll learn that,” Torres said, with a knowing smile.
On Friday and Saturday nights, Torres, 42, works as a magician in a Jackson Heights bar called Mojito, twisting coins with his fingers and naming the exact card a customer picked. On Sundays, though, he herds kids through the same sleight-of-hand practice at Lehman College, his alma mater. In late December, he concluded the 12-week free session with a magic show for their parents.
“Magic is making the impossible possible,” Torres said. “For kids in the Bronx, who don’t see a lot of opportunity, that’s a good theme.”
***
For Torres, a Bronx native, magic is a kind of performance art—like theater or dance—that takes years to master. In the Bronx, however, art is often out of reach: In the Bronx, a 2025 analysis by New York City’s Independent Budget Office found that nearly one in five Bronx schools have no certified arts teacher or city-funded local arts program.
“In Manhattan, people get to see magic a lot, just off the street,” said Torres, who also teaches magic at private schools in Upper Manhattan.
Torres grew up hooked on “weird and strange stuff”—sci-fi, superheroes, “Rick and Morty”—anything that let his imagination run. His mother bought him a Marshall Brodien magic set when he was 14, and soon he started checking out every magic book from his public library branch. Then he began performing at his mother’s church in Queens. Her favorite was the rope trick, which involves Torres twisting and pulling ropes until they change lengths.
Shy by nature, Torres studied performing arts at Lehman, thinking that acting would provide “a structured way to interact with people.”
His first full-time magician job, a solid 12-year stretch, was at Ninja New York, a Japanese restaurant in Tribeca with a theatrical twist. Servers dressed in black would leap from hidden doors, or drop from the ceiling to startle guests. Then Torres appeared, dressed head to toe in black except for a small white pocket stitched with the word “rent,” for tips.
To start his act, he opened his wallet, letting a flame flare from its folds. He then sped into a rapid-fire routine, channeling one of his idols, Harry “The Hat” Anderson.“Ninja is where I learned everything,” Torres said. “It’s where I watched people grow up, finish school, get engaged, start families.”
Then came the pandemic. Ninja shut down overnight in March 2020. Torres’s father died in an assisted living home, and his mother soon after. In 2023, his beloved cat Tiberius, “one of the greatest little beings ever to walk this Earth,” died too. Job, health insurance, loved ones, all gone one after another. Not even his best tricks could restore what he’d lost.
Reeling from the damage, Torres admitted he was never much of a businessman; he was always chasing the art. Now, he simply looks for the next gig, trying to pull a living out of thin air.
In 2024, the trick finally landed. During the job interview, seeing Torres produce a potato from under an empty cup, the owner of Mojito hired him on the spot.
***
On his recent commute to the Mojito, Torres scanned the 7 train as it screeched into Grand Central Station. The car was packed. He shook his head. “I need to get somewhere I can sit,” he said.
Traveling to the bar from his Holland Avenue apartment in the Bronx takes an hour-and-a-half — two subway rides and a bus. He works 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights, and gets home past 1 a.m. He’s happy if he leaves with $80 to $90 a night. At Ninja, most nights he took home $200 or more.
The pandemic left its mark on Torres in the broadening of his waistline and the thickening of his jaw. Mortified, he has stopped posting pictures of himself on Instagram. “I was never like I am now,” he said. “It’s because of all the stress in my life.”
At Mojito, though, the magician was alive and at work. On this Halloween night, he made small sponge balls multiply in the hands of customers celebrating an anniversary. The balls, actually pink hearts, fit the theme.
“I was so shocked,” said Luis Alex, a customer, as hearts spilled from his hands. “It just blossomed. Magic really exists!”
What makes Torres’ magic stand out, said Henry Ovalles, associate director of Lehman Stages, who went to school and worked on shows with him, is that whatever he does is always “full of heart.”
“The audience leaves smiling when Eddie’s involved in the show,” Ovalles said. “When he does magic, it’s sort of like a stand-up comedy magic-type show. But it’s never cynical, never angry, never hateful, and never comedy that puts people down. It’s always raising people up, making people feel good. And there’s a sweetness to it.”
Torres also holds himself to a high standard. He’s generally fidgeting with a coin or deck, even while gaming or watching TV, to better his skill. He expects the same from the children in his workshop. When a trick worked, he’d smile and say, “Good. But next time, tell a story. Be theatrical. Keep them curious.”
“He talks to them as if they are his own age,” Ovalles said. “Kids are used to people using a baby voice with them, but he shows them how things work and makes them feel on the same level as him.”
It was starting to show. Sadio Jonas, Ananya Bankoussou’s mother, said she noticed her daughter performing with more confidence, adding a line or two of her own. “It’s such a social skill,” she said. “Something she can use when she grows up.”
***
Each day of the workshop concluded with a short showtime. Ananya fanned out a deck of cards and drew a breath.
“Pick a card,” she said to Torres.
He took the two of hearts, gave it a look, then pushed it back into the stack. Ananya cut the deck, then shuffled it, eyes locked behind her pink glasses.
“Misdirect me,” Torres reminded her.
“Your hands are soft,” Ananya said without looking up.
Torres swallowed a laugh.
Ananya showed him four of spades. “Is this your card?”
“No,” Torres said.
Ananya slapped the four of spades on the desk; when she lifted her hand, it had turned into the two of hearts. “Is this your card?” she asked again.
“Yes. Well done!” Torres said. “Next time, when misdirecting me, say something about the card.”
A smile blossomed on the girl’s face. Her brother, Ansel, cracked up beside her. His version of the trick ended with a card pulled from his hoodie. Torres sent them off with a challenge: show the trick to at least three people outside their family.
“There’s something about when a kid’s really trying to learn,” Torres said. “You give them a little advice, and when it clicks, you see their eyes go ‘oh.’ That moment—it’s just so satisfying.”
About the author(s)
Hope Zhu is an M.S. student at Columbia Journalism School and has previously covered topics including immigration, retail, and travel.