The Wyandotte Scene
Capturing the essence of Wyandotte today is much like trying to photograph a quickly moving object – things are just moving so fast, and change and transformation are constant and ongoing – resulting in an incomplete or blurry picture at best. But here is my attempt to tag and label The Wyandotte Scene.
Public art outside of River’s Edge Gallery on Biddle Ave. Photo from September 26, 2005 by Isaac Kremer.
We have come a long way from the rough wilderness that Biddle encountered when he sought to set up his plantation here in 1818, or since the Eureka Iron Works was founded here in 1854, resulting in a riverfront lined by factories by the turn of the 20th century. Today the manufacture of steel has been replaced by the mixing of tasty smoothies at places like Energie, or the baking of fresh homemade breads at Randazzo’s Bakery which newly opened this week at 109 Maple in downtown Wyandotte.
Today Wyandotte is regarded as a center for art and culture for the surrounding area, and is an important satellite to the gallery and cultural scene in Detroit. For those who cannot handle the grit and inconvenience of urban life, Wyandotte provides urban amenities (historic housing, galleries, restaurants, and cafes) with a small town feel.
One principle that connects the Wyandotte of today with the Wyandotte of the past is scarcity. Ask any city official about the city budget today – and they will undoubtedly say that things are tight. What does this experience of scarcity force us to do? To innovate and to try something new. So it is even during these economically challenging times that several new businesses like Randazzo’s have opened downtown, and that Wyandotte has received increasing attention as a hip and important center for arts and culture. You may even say that today Wyandotte is undergoing something of a Renaissance.
The Wyandotte Renaissance may be found especially in galleries downtown, where the city’s past, present, and future, are bound together in objects and art which are a unique expression of this place and time. Patt Slack’s Rivers Edge Gallery has just finished a show of ruins and found objects, including the dramatic images of Justin Harris in his custom-made one-of-a-kind frames. Up the street at Biddle Gallery, the work of Kevin Asher has an industrial aesthetic – where found objects are joined together to create unique assemblages. Biddle Gallery also features the work of the exciting Wyandotte artist Jessica Flint. Flint’s work evokes a mystical or naturalistic feeling, which whether intentionally or not, reminds us that this land we inhabit at one time was once a dark and mysterious wilderness and despite our best efforts to tame it with roads, and houses, and lawns, and the like – it may still be more wilderness than city today.
Then there is the work of Wyandotte sculptor Sharon Simms. Some sculptures she has made in Wyandotte are both made IN this place, but also BY this place through a tragic twist of fate. A 2001 fire in the Cahalan Building destroyed much of her work and that of many others. Of what could be salvaged, the flames and ash imbued upon the pieces a special meaning and appearance – of having survived a great cataclysm.
There is one single object in which the promise and pitfalls of The Wyandotte Scene are best captured and understood – the decaying hulk of the 1938 Wyandotte Theater. When originally built, the 1,700 main auditorium and The Annex which was added a few years later, were meant to replace other theaters downtown. The ironic effect of this theater having closed, is that Wyandotte since that time has not had a place downtown for performance or the meeting of large groups – thus depriving an already lively arts and cultural scene of that one thing that might make it extraordinary – a place to perform.
The Downtown Development Authority recently had an opportunity to make an appropriation of $5,000 to study whether preservation of the Wyandotte Theater is economically viable. This is a common activity for public bodies to do to help stimulate economic development which more than pays for an initial investment. For the DDA to not approve this expenditure deprives us the opportunity to understand whether preservation of the theater is viable or not – a delay which Wyandotte cannot afford. This is one reason why the arrival of Lisa Hooper as the new Executive Director of the DDA this past week is welcome. With her we have the leadership that is needed to sustain the Wyandotte Renaissance and to create a place for which we may feel proud.