Delirious Wyandotte
In writing Delirious New York, Rem Koolhaas intended to provide a “retroactive manifesto” for how New York City and its unique urban form came to be. In it he cites things such as the grid, the tower, and the architecture of fantasy.
What might a retroactive manifesto for Wyandotte include? One might start with Biddle arriving here in 1818 and attempting to set up a plantation, but eight years later the isolation and loneliness of the wilderness caused him to move on to Philadelphia and then Paris, leaving his house and estate which he called “The Wyandotte” behind.
Fast forward to the past fifty years. Two objects were constructed – a Totem pole and a log cabin – a sentimental effort to commemorate a heritage which may have never existed here. Wyandotte had relatively few cabins, if any, and none of them would have looked like the one presently in Bishop Park.
Then there is the totem pole. Totem poles are common to the people of the Northwest United States. Even there these were intended as temporary and ceremonial structures, with the figures on the pole recounting important legends, personages, and events. Never were totem poles present in the Eastern United States or Midwest, and they were certainly never meant to last for an indefinite and extended period of time. Now, Wyandotte does have heritage related to Native-Americans, but to commemorate this with a symbol or device that bears no resemblance to the traditions of those who inhabited this land that we inhabit today, is the height of insensitivity and disregard for this important part of our heritage that deserves to be better interpreted and understood.
To close, I cite the “Discover Wyandotte” banners lining the streets downtown. These line drawings on different colored backgrounds show a building that does not exist in Wyandotte and probably nowhere in the civilized world. This three-story, three-bay building with funny round arched windows on the first floor, round pediments over windows on the second floor, and flat lintels on the third floor, would be the height of unattractiveness and inconvenience if actually built. To use this, of all possible images, to illustrate the heritage of Wyandotte, not only shows that we disregard the heritage of the Native Americans, but that of our own ancestors and those who live in Wyandotte today.
Altogether, what do these four examples tell us, and how well do they provide a retroactive manifesto of Wyandotte? The unifying concept is from its beginning to present day there has been a striving or thirst for a heritage that may have never existed here, along with a profound ignorance about the actual heritage of this place. What this bodes for the future of Wyandotte is unclear – except to expect more of the same, but to hope for something different.
As published in Downriver Review.