The Museum of Broken Relationships in Hollywood was itself a bit broken Tuesday after a fleeing DUI suspect’s late-model black Audi crashed into the building, injuring two pedestrians in a hit-and-run crash.
Police said the unidentified woman driver suspect, who was taken into custody after a failed effort to flee on foot, had just left the scene of another collision when her car veered onto Hollywood Boulevard and crashed into the museum.
One of the pedestrians sustained only minor injuries, while the other one was hospitalized with a head injury in critical, but stable, condition.
The motorist, a woman in her 30s, was arrested on suspicion of DUI and hit-and-run, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
The Museum of Broken Relationships is filled with items from donors who had disastrous, emotional breakups. All items are exhibited without identifying the people involved, but some include pictures of then-happy couples, clothes, games and even such remembrances as a book of matches inscribed, “May the bridges I burn light the way.”
Once a traveling exhibition revolving around the concept of failed relationships and their ruins, the museum was conceptualized in Croatia by an artist ex-couple in 2006. A permanent museum was established in Zagreb in 2010, and the Hollywood location opened in May, according to the website.
A corner pillar of the Hollywood museum building appeared to have sustained damage as the woman’s car drove head-on into it, but the structure did not appear to be harmed otherwise.
The woman DUI suspect was attempting to flee the scene of a non-injury vehicle crash about a block away at Hollywood Boulevard and Las Palmas Avenue Monday afternoon when her Audi struck the pedestrians at Hollywood Boulevard and McCadden Place and then rammed the museum building, Officer Aareon Jefferson alleged.
The Museum of Broken Relationships opened about five months ago in a building at the northwest corner of the intersection.
“It was determined that she (the motorist) was under the influence,” Jefferson said.
Paramedics rushed the pedestrians to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where one patient was listed in critical but stable condition and the other was treated for minor injuries, according to Sgt. Ben Zucker of the LAPD’s Hollywood Station.
The motorist was not injured, Zucker said.
–City News Service