Pittsburgh’s Global Visitors
Save Darfur exhibit on Flagstaff Hill
Preparations are underway across the city, as the Police try to make the Steel City secure for the G20 Summit and protestors begin to make themselves visible.
With the events of London’s G20 summit fresh in memory, a lot of people are worried about how Pittsburgh will fare. Will violent protesters wreak havoc? Will the Police make mistakes under the extreme pressure of the situations? Will anyone be injured? Will the city’s businesses suffer damage? All of these questions are legitimate, but thankfully some protesters have promised that they will be respectful, and are not a danger to themselves or the city.
There is already a peaceful protest set up in the Hill District, where some tent dwellers are simply trying to draw attention to the plight of the out-of-work and underpaid in this country. The remarkable thing about this protest is that they’re relying on donations of food to stay out there all week.
Destroyed Villages Exhibit
A black security fence is erected at CMU
Closer to campus, there is a Darfur protest, with a permit from the city, set up on Flagstaff Hill. They are located across the street from the welcoming reception (to be held Thursday evening at Phipps Conservatory). Their goal is to make sure that the 20 leaders attending the reception have no choice but to see the signs reminding them of the genocide happening right now in Darfur.
On the Police side, the black fences are going up. My office, on CMU’s campus, is across the street from Phipps (right behind the Darfur protest). We’ve been told to vacate the building by 2:30pm on Thursday, and the fences are a visual reminder that some people much more important than us are on their way.
Tomorrow, I’m going to see Eric Schmidt (Google CEO) talk, and Thursday I’m going to watch protestors from across the world march on our city…hoping they decide not to riot. Pittsburgh is a global city, if only for the week.
Photos throughout the week will be posted to my flickr photostream.
-aigulf
I'm an engineer by trade, and a photographer by hobby. In the fall of 2007, I bought my first digital SLR, a Nikon D40x, and haven't looked back yet. The majority of my photographic expeditions involve abandoned structures in Western Pennsylvania, but I'm never without my camera while on the road or at a Pirates game, and I have been known to take the occasional photo of a plant.