Eideard

Fraley’s Robot Repair is a fictional business set up as a public art installation. The Artist behind this installation is Toby Atticus Fraley, a multidisciplinary artist based in the Pittsburgh area.

This installation opened for a year long run on Duquesne Light Light Up Night®, November 18, 2011.

The shop depicts what appears to be a robot repair shop where the owners have left for vacation, leaving robots in various stages of repair, including one peering through the store windows longing for life in the outside world. The scene appears to be set in the future, where robot ownership is commonplace, with a 1950’s aesthetic. Interactive QR codes and a website allow smartphone and internet users a behind-the-scenes view of the creation of the art piece. Those who frequent the area will see the installation change and evolve over the course of the year…

The project seeks to dovetail recent investments in downtown by revitalizing and occupying vacant storefronts, making for a more attractive, safe and vibrant downtown corridor while adding to local economy.

Terrific idea. Eminently successful concept. Should be managed by someone like Ray Bradbury.

Thanks, Ursarodina

In his first call to 911, Curtis Mitchell sounded calm, explaining to dispatchers that his “entire stomach [was] in pain.”

By the time his longtime girlfriend made a 10th call nearly 30 hours later, she was frantic. He wasn’t breathing. He was cold to the touch.

“Oh God, oh God,” Sharon Edge sobbed to dispatchers. “I’ve been trying to get an ambulance over here for three days…”

“I sat up here with him, watching him die,” Ms. Edge said Tuesday, after city officials apologized to her and pledged immediate changes in emergency response after Mr. Mitchell’s death on Feb. 7. “They didn’t do their jobs like they were supposed to…”

Ambulances were dispatched three times on Saturday, Feb. 6, to the couple’s home in the 5100 block of narrow Chaplain Way, but couldn’t get there because of the snow. Paramedics twice asked whether Mr. Mitchell could walk to an intersection, even after he told them that he could not because he was in too much pain.

Emergency vehicles were within blocks of his home three times — once so close Ms. Edge could see the ambulance lights from her porch — but did not make contact with him. They finally reached the home on Sunday morning, Feb. 7, but Mr. Mitchell was already dead.

“We should have gotten there,” Public Safety Director Michael Huss said. “It’s that simple.”

Yes – you should have. Sometimes it takes an extra little bit of dedication to perform a simple act of humanity. That’s why it’s called “humanity” and not Grade 4 attendant or some such.