On the eve of the G-20, Downtown is buttoning up and battening down. Chinook helicopters overhead ... fences going up all over the damn place ... squads of state police walking around.

It's like East Berlin, except with a couple gyro shops thrown in. 

Oh, and have you heard about our Cultural District? It's really brought so much LIFE Downtown!

There are so many photos of boarded-up and blocked-off storefronts I can show you, though. What's more interesting is to see how some local businesses are trying to convince visitors that they don't exist by concealing or removing their name plates. 

We'll reveal the identity of these corporate citizens just as soon as the smoke clears.

Some Starbucks around town have also sought to conceal their identity. All this effort, even though anyone who can access Google Maps can find the location of just about any place they wish.

I do wonder, though, whether the folks at UPMC wished it was a little easier to take THEIR sign atop the Steel Building down. Probably not -- the impact of a street protest rarely reaches past the first floor.