WHEEEE!
Posted on 08/05/2002 7:54:31 AM PDT by H8DEMS
A sport utility vehicle smashed through a wall of the oldest house in Hartford Sunday morning, landing completely inside the south parlor of the newly renovated Butler-McCook Homestead museum. The accident came two months after the museum reopened to the public following a four-year, $1.3 million renovation. The house, built in 1782, is the only one left from the city's Colonial era and contains the city's oldest intact collection of antique furniture, toys, art and Colonial-era objects. Witnesses at the scene said the driver, who was injured in the crash, was traveling about 50 mph when he went through the wall about 25 feet from Main Street. "This is a devastating blow," said William Hosley, executive director of The Antiquarian & Landmarks Society, which owns and operates the museum. "The Butler-McCook Homestead is a symbol of Hartford's heritage more than any of our other institutions. This is not only an assault on the building, it's an assault on the city." Wilfredo Sanchez, 21, was traveling east on Capitol Avenue about 6 a.m. when his KIA Sportage went through the intersection at Main Street, jumped a curb, knocked over a wooden fence and sailed through the museum wall, police said. Sanchez, of 17 Norwich St., was charged with operating a motor vehicle while under suspension, misuse of license plates and driving an uninsured and unregistered vehicle. He was listed in stable condition at Hartford Hospital late Sunday. The Hartford landmark, built by doctor and paper mill owner Daniel Butler and his wife, Sarah Sheldon Butler, stayed in the family until 1971, when Butler's great-granddaughter, Frances McCook, gave it to the society for use as a museum. The recent museum renovation includes a new Main Street History Center, housed in the former doctor's office attached to the house. The center was not damaged by the crash. Items in the museum were either made in the city, Hosley said, or belonged to the McCook family and were passed down from Colonial times. Aside from the wall, the crash damaged several valuable pieces, Hosley said, including a 225-year-old chest of drawers; the 165-year-old sofa where the Rev. John McCook proposed to his wife, Eliza; and a portrait of George Sheldon, a publishing pioneer in the city. Hosley spent part of Sunday morning at the house, watching a tow truck driver extract the sport utility vehicle from the parlor and consoling museum employees. Hosley said it would take time to determine the exact cost of the damage. While many of the historic items cannot be replaced, they can be restored, he said. Vivian Zoe, a former museum development director, stopped by after hearing about the crash. "The whole thing is just horrible," said Zoe, who is executive director and curator at the Noah Webster House in West Hartford. The only consolation was that the accident happened after employees recently updated and catalogued the museum's inventory of historical items, which will provide a more accurate record of what was destroyed, she said. Courant Staff Writer Connie Neyer contributed to this report.
(Excerpt) Read more at ctnow.com ...
Not anymore
Ha. I was thinking the same thing as soon as I saw the make. Anything smaller than a Tahoe doesn't qualify...
WHEEEE!
Of course the Sportage isn't an SUV. It's an assault vehicle.
"Toy truck" doesn't make for a good headline.
it went through the building at a mere 50 mph? you know, this never happened in the good old days of castle-dom in europe. they just don't make buildings like they used to.
Small, lightweight, fuel efficient Kia toy truck.
Wilfredo will get a hero's ticker-tape parade in Hartford when the museum collects on its insurance claims.
I am fascinated by the "facts" this little sentence leaves out.
Plus each item that is listed is a story in itself.
methinks there might be a DUI pending, too.
I understand Volvo is comming out with a version of Satellite radio that automatically finds the local NPR station as you drive around the country touring different Sierra Club offices, and coffie shops that serve only shade grown, fair trade coffie picked by a happy diverse workforce that has a say in corporate policy.
"Did you jes' hear somethin' Lana Belle?"
Give me a break. A real SUV like Suburban or Excursion would have leveled the place.
I wonder how the headline would have read if he had been driving a PC car like a Volve wagon?
Volvo V70 - 3,488 pounds
Kia Sportage - 3,186
Or, a man.
Sickening. House was probably very close to the road.
From the same design team that brought you the AMC Gremlin!
LOL! Shades of the old AMC Gremlin TV ad: "Hey, lady!! Where's the other half of your car?!"
I am a white, corporate insurance type. I smoke cigarettes. And;....as of today...I now drive an S.U.V.!!!
This raping rainforests/starving children thing just keeps getting better!
Ted Kennedy behind the wheel of this one?
A: Roller skates.
Surely you don't expect him to blame Sanchez, a poor undocumented worker from Mexico who is obviously blameless. Naturally it's the evil SUV's fault. If Sanchez shoots his doctors, it will be the fault of the gun, too. ;-)
I'll refrain from making the politically incorrect snarky remark that I'm sure would get me suspended.
Raise your hand if you think that this guy was in the country legally...
Henrietta (not raising hand)
ROTFL! And like its counterpart, the evil gun, it has a tendency to roam the streets at will wreacking havoc wherever it goes despite the will of its hapless owners.
Well, it does seem to be the getaway vehicle of choice for homicidal maniacs, therefore they must be conspiring with the perpetrator who, after all, is just a victim of oppressive guns and SUV's.
I think the smaller ones do qaulify as SUVs, the 'S' standing after all for Sport. How sporting is to rampage your way through traffic, pedestrians, and houses, in what I prefer to term an UAV, "Urban Assault Vehicle". Friend of mine, now deceased, bought a Chevy Suburban, after decades of being a Ford man, because all the big Ford SUVs were, by his estimation, underpowered. I used to kid him about his UUV, which was black, with darkly tinted windows. He was a retired AF Reserve Colonel, but when he went to get his base sticker, the Navy (NAS/JRB Ft. Worth) was all out of AF white eagle on a blue background, and instead gave him a Navy black eagle on white background. The Navy version is also somewhat more severe looking. I told him it looked more like something the SS would have on their vehicles. I told him he needed to get a 20mm to mount on the beast, preferable an M-61 Gatling, said "I think that big old UUV could handle the recoil without flipping over" ...well not really, but almost. I then suggested maybe a semiauto 20mm, Swiss or German, might have to do. Wish he was still around to kid about it. :( ..
That picture is of the 2 door version, which is akin to a Geo/Suzziki 2-door. The original Kia Sportage is somewhat longer, and maybe wider, and it has 4 doors. My daughter has one, with the really wimpy motor that the early ones had, more recent models are said to be a mite more brisk. Still they best serve around town, they are not an off-road vehicle by any strech, although the 4-WD versions probably do somewhat better off the pavement than the 2 WD ones. I wouldn't take the 2-WD ones off a hard surface, unless it was a nice flat pasture, with a path already worn by other vehicles.
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