WADESTOWN MAN OPENS FOUND OBJECT MUSEUM WITH ONE HUBCAP IN IT
The tour takes four minutes and the hubcap is doing most of the work.
Wadestown has a museum. It is a garage. The collection is one hubcap. The curator, Nelson Grieve, 71, would like it known that the hubcap is "not the point".
The Wadestown Museum of Found Objects opened on Saturday in a garage above the shops. There is a hand-painted sign on the door. Inside there is a card table with a tea towel on it. The hubcap sits on the tea towel. Grieve found it in his hedge after the southerly in early May, the one MetService has since called "typical". In 1974 this was a shed. Grieve says it is a museum. The sign agrees with him.
"Came off a Corolla, I'd say, going downhill too quick," Grieve told The Daily Yarn. "Or it blew over from Karori. Bloody wind. That's the story. I've had eleven people through and not one has asked for a second exhibit."
Neighbour Hilary Okonkwo, 58, has been twice. "First time it came off a Corolla. Second time it was a Holden and there was a dog. I'm not saying he's making it up. I'm saying the story is growing and the hubcap isn't."
Wellington City Council said a garage with "one item of roadside origin" in it did not need resource consent. It also said it "could not confirm it was a museum". Asked what it was, then, the spokesperson said: "A garage. With a hubcap in it."
On Tuesday morning the tea towel was empty. Grieve has not reported the hubcap missing and does not plan to. "It's a found object museum," he said. "Someone's found it."
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Reader Letters
★ JoannePetone
Honestly, it's a bit quirky but fair enough. I mean, the Hutt has a few oddball attractions too. Teenagers could learn something from creativity like this, rather than staring at screens all day.
★ Garry (Halswell)
Wouldn't have happened in my day—standards were different. A hubcap museum? It's more like a playful prank. What happened to proper museums with proper standards?
couchgremlin
Lol.
★ Margaret_F
I'm suspicious of this whole thing. Gerald would have chuckled at this because in our day, people celebrated ingenuity with full exhibits, not a lone hubcap.
friendly_fiona
It's not about the hubcap! It's about the community coming together for something daft and enjoying the story. More towns need this!
★ Trev_Hornby
Mate, I reckon the council got this one wrong. If he's got the spirit, call it a bloody museum and let the man have his fun!
munted_tom
Too right, Trev. Bloody council wankers never know when to let people just be without all the forms and permissions. It's just a bit of fun!
KiwiCultureCritic
Mate, museums need more artefacts, right? Not just a yarn about a hubcap. Imagine if Te Papa ran on that logic. Laughingstock material!
sunny_sandy
@KiwiCultureCritic You've missed the point mate, it's not about the hubcap, it's about the fun. Lighten up, yeah?
late_night_Larry
Where's the bloody irony gone? Kiwis used to know how to have a laugh without taking everything so seriously.
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