Delivery Truck Crashes Into Hirshhorn Museum
All photos by Kriston Capps. (Apologies for their quality.)
At around 8:30 p.m. Monday evening, a UPS driver suffered a seizure and swerved along Independence Avenue SW, driving through a light pole and a flower pot barrier before crashing the truck into the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden building.
The driver was injured in the accident. D.C. Fire & Emergency Medical Services initially assessed his injuries as a priority two trauma, which means serious but not life threatening. At around 10 p.m., however, D.C. 6th Battalion Fire Chief Mike Conway described the driver's injuries as bruises, cuts, and scrapes. According to Conway, the driver—who was described as "alert and oriented"—left his wrecked truck by his own power and boarded an ambulance, which took him to a local trauma center.
No art was lost in the accident—though that was not the first concern for people on hand. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden director Richard Koshalek arrived at the scene just before 10 p.m. and was briefed by Conway and Fire Batallion Chief Wayne Benson. Koshalek asked immediately after the welfare of the driver and whether any other cars or passerby were struck. (None were.)
"That's good news," said Koshalek. "We can fix the museum."
Before Koshalek could investigate the crash, fire officials sealed off the area and tested for hazardous materials. Bomb-sniffing dogs were brought onto the truck, where they sniffed a dozen or so packages left onboard. The truck leaked a substance that appeared to be gasoline, which fire fighters covered with a sandy substance (which they called “product,” as in, “Don't step in the product”). Police blocked off streets and sidewalks between 7th Street and 9th Street SW as well as between Jefferson Drive and Independence Avenue SW.
Fire officials could not say which way the driver was traveling along Independence Ave. SW when he lost control of his vehicle, but the wreck made it look he was traveling east—and moving with considerable speed. The UPS truck bowled over a light pole and plowed through a large concrete flower pot barrier before crashing into the museum's entrance. The truck crashed through the glass near the eastern-most edge of the entrance, where windows meet concrete, causing glass panels to spiderweb.
The building—known by its fans and critics alike as Bunshaft's Bunker, after its architect, Gordon Bunshaft—appeared to withstand the blow. It remains to be seen how the accident will affect renovation plans for this part of the building. Koshalek has asked artist Doug Aitken to design a new look for the bookstore, which is located just inside the entrance but will be moved to the basement. Aitken's preliminary design calls for a shaft of natural light from the Independence Avenue side to fall through the floor to illuminate the basement bookstore.
Gabriel Riera, spokesman for the he Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, said the museum will be open as usual on Tuesday, May 10. The accident will not affect the museum's upcoming retrospective, “Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers,” which opens to the public on May 20.
(This post has been updated since it was first published).