Paupers Drop

* Connects From Ryan_Amusements_(game_level)
* Connects To SIRENS_ALLEY
* See also Rapture Map
* See also BS2
* See also Amended_Game_Level_Maps
* See also Sinclair and Grace
[[add updated maps<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<]]
Wrong side of the tracks ... Paupers Drop :
Paupers Drop "Maintenance Junction 17" should be a 'junction' of multiple routes. Tracks should go in/out from more than just the AE 'Short Line' that we follow across Southern Rapture in BS2. A second Station closely connected to the first is logical ( to allow passengers to transfer between lines/routes ). The AE Map we are show ( http://rapturerebornmmorpg.wikia.com/wiki/File:AE_map.jpg ) does not really indicate another line intersecting this 'junction', but it may have been realigned before the time of the game. There are certainly many tracks outside in the Ocean nearby that could represent the second route ( look out the windows ... ).
The Second station ( making it a proper 'Junction' ) is added in an upper level where its N-S track would clear the other (W-E) track it crosses. A stairwell and elevator between the station levels allowed passengers to switch train lines. The added (N-S) line traveled thru the 'Paupers Drop' interior ( but that WAS before it was occupied/redeveloped ).
The second N-S track ( used for local maintenance ) is stub-ended ( If it continued, it would have had to intersect the first station ). It has a Turntable and 2 storage/maintenance Bays. The Turntable could also be used as an end-of-line turnaround for whatever line its track connects to out the South end.
The map's Southern structures ("Downtown" and "Market") are actually almost a level lower in height ( because of the stairs down ) but are shown in simplified continuity with the northern structures. The biggest distortion is the AE tracks (near the ceiling) would be on the 4th level of the northern part and on the 5th level in the southern.
Look at how large an interior The Sinclair Deluxe actually was ( all that Green shading marked on my map ), which can be surmised by the extent of the viewed game level paths accessible on other floors. The interior space shown is all extracted from extending existing walls -- with Green used for those directly indicated by doors/windows/similar floorplans, and Orange for the remaining filler space. A full third floor full of rooms similar to the first two was accessible, way back when the place was not yet wrecked.
Ive Added a 'Grand Staircase' near the middle of the Hotel. It was bizarre that the Atrium area had no staircase, and only an elevator, AND only that small staircase all the way near the back.
Observe in the game, those massive (red) girders and ceiling above much of this level ( including in those interior water areas that should not really need a supported ceiling ) -- Is there a building up above there ?? A Warehouse for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloons ?? The entire complex has the massive concrete foundations and thick reinforced concrete structural walls ( Concrete was one thing that could be manufactured locally and thus was cheaper than other materials ).
An Interesting Thing : No internal Pressure bulkheads visible in The Sinclair Deluxe ( If one section goes, it wipes out the whole place ). That would hold construction expenses down, and if it flooded, then it could be pumped out and new tenants moved in to continue the rent income ( massive retrofitting likely would have made such very costly ).
The View out of windows near The Limbo Room entrance is wrong -- In reality the mass of the Sinclair Deluxe largely obscures the horizon 'Skydome' view. The Limbo Room is on the deepest level - Does that make it a deep 'Dive' ??
The 'Market' ceilings are starting to fall in and those little jacks are supposed to hold it up ?? Even funnier was one set of jacks being located ontop of a flimsy roof and there's no wall/beams underneath it to support whatever massive weight is pressing down. If that's the maintenance competency of Sofia_Lamb's little group, then they won't have to wait for Sofia Lamb to murder them -- Before they all sooner die in sudden icy wetness.
A floor below street level has been added to most buildings. Foundation and Basement for the Sumps (drainage systems), utilities and miscellaneous services. Nasty damp tunnels with who knows what in them ...
The Sinclair Deluxe was a good-sized building when all five floors were accessible - Quite alot larger than the bits we can get to in the Solo BS2 game. The two additional lower floors are used for Utilities and various Services, making 5 total. ( Service floor in Sinclair Deluxe for food/laundry/staff for back when it was a 'hotel' ). The Sinclair Deluxe appears now with significantly more apartment/room units to hold a more realistic number of residents/tenants. Before Sofia Lamb's "commune-ists", all those knocked thru walls were still intact.
The Sinclair Deluxe's construction is largely a heavy/thick reinforced concrete shell with 'compression plate' floors to reinforce the outer walls. It was NOT designed by the Wales Brothers. The 'Decor' is thin veneer or wallpaper ontop of concrete or plaster lathing, and tile work in bathrooms. The basement level has the required sumps and pumps typical to all Rapture buildings.
The general 'run down' state of the whole district - remember this was 7+ years after Sinclair was no longer 'in charge' and 'The Rapture Family' was running things. The Sinclair Deluxe looks like it WAS a pretty good place at one time ( compare it to Fontaine's "Home for the Poor" 7 years earlier in BS1 ).
Note - Proper bulkhead sealing doors for AE 'repair' tracks ( in the old maintenance facility up near the ceiling above you ) should be on the water side ( or embedded in walls ) to seal properly ( and were well braced to withstand the massive water force which presses against them ). Minor detail - first coupla 'play-throughs' I didn't even look up to see them.
The Limbo Room looks like the only thing actually lower than the original Atlantic Express maintenance building structure ( maybe it was a Sump originally 'hollowed out' for the pumps up above ?? )
Those interior water spaces between the buildings (roofed over) are odd. They don't look like they were meant to be a swimming pool. Maybe Sinclair was diversifying and incorporated a "Fish Farm" to employ more 'unfortunates' and to "cut out the middleman" ( Fontaine - who probably was manipulating fish prices ). A Sinclair Fried Fish Delivery business venture ???
"To The Dump" - south passage (blocked) that went to yet another building structure ??? Maybe not a 'City Dump' as mentioned by a developer, but just a 'commentary' of the really run down state of that area.
Note how The district (building cluster) used more inexpensive 'port-hole' style sea windows. Not being as large as so many of the huge rectangular pane windows (we see elsewhere), requires less massive wall reinforcementA famous early jet airliner failed and crashed due to square windows ( corners where cracks start ) which is why they have round windows ever since.. This is more what I would expect in the various industrial districts where there is really little need for large windows and their added expense ( Worse is in Neptune's Bounty for examples of unneeded HUGE windows ).
We see Pipes/conduits in walls/floors embedded in cement. That's bad design - it increases possible corrosion and stress, and complicates future repairs. False walls usually hide pipes (for aesthetics), or pipes are left exposed on the bare concrete wall. The structural concrete is constructed first and with plenty of space left for all the utility pipes to be added later ( once the structure is water tight ).
I also note that many of the broken sections of concrete walls correctly show Rebar and other embedded reinforcements - Good except that the damage/break patterns would NOT have broken off the rebar - the concrete would be shattered and possibly fall away but the metal would remain.
Why don't the tracks up near the ceiling (of 'Maintenance Junction 17') have any maintenance platforms or catwalks ( or remains of them) to allow work on the traincars ??? The lower floor ( the Player runs about in ) was the 'hollowed out underneath' area that Sinclair talks about. Maybe the work platforms were removed BEFORE they fell on the inhabitants ( after the facility was deactivated along with most AE passenger service, though they probably also wouldn't leave Traincars up there ). It was redeveloped by Sinclair -- and things falling and killing customers is bad for business. I added catwalks to show where they were ( up integrated into the track structure ) for the East 'Maintenance' track. Having the catwalks/work platforms in for BS2 might have given the Player a more '3D' environment to play around in ( or to make use of for tactics, or setting for yet another interesting choreographed situation ... ) .
If it ( the location that became Paupers Drop ) was "Hollowed out" -- shouldn't that (lowest) south east building be dug into the seabed ( and with no windows that low ... those ones you see at the Limbo Room entrance area shouldn't exist ) ??? The first 'Paupers Drop' section with the Diner is actually AT the same level of the AE station. Perhaps Sinclair's (Re)development was a bit more substantial than just grabbing a little existing 'hollowed out' space. The Sinclair Deluxe was not part of Maintenance Junction 17 original buildings, and instead was a substantial addition almost as large as the rest of the complex (level).
Big Art Deco statues you see in the inside water area - they are concrete, and must've been on sale for Sinclair to pay for them. The ones inside (metal ones), are of divers with wrenches, symbolic of the RR construction workers - probably part of the original AE structure.
Sinclair was always one for an opportunity for Customers -- Hence the storage rental spaces and mausoleum in the lower levels of The Sinclair Deluxe. I'm not sure if he would have his advertisements say that : "Once you come to the Deluxe, you never have to leave".
Those large (red) metal supports out in the water just east of the Train Station makes it look like there was a further high-roof building extension in that area at one time.
The additional areas (orange/green) would have contained additional residences/offices/shops ( for local convenience - otherwise locals would have to take a train to get ordinary things ) :
* Grocery Store
* Liquor Store
* Employment Agency
* Appliance repair shop
* Pool Hall/Betting Parlor
* A cheap Bar (with 'backrooms')
* Tattoo Parlor
* Coin Laundry
* Pigeon Coops on the roofs (tasty tasty pigeons and eggs).
* Barber Shop
* One or more Sweatshops
* Constable Substation
* Beauty Parlor
Looking at the entire Paupers Drop map (even expanded), it is not a very large area to live in. How expensive were the Atlantic Express trains to ride ( to get elsewhere, to more open space ) ? It must have been not too expensive - probably like riding a subway or city bus system for ordinary fares ( Paupers Drop has no other obvious connection to the City ). Still, it would be money the 'poor' people living there probably could ill afford. Other parts of the City had a continuous 'Street' system connecting them, but Paupers Drop was not originally planned as a residential or business area and thus was left unconnected.
--- --- --- 
Things to Do to Make "Paupers Drop" a 'Nicer Place to Live' (post BS2) :
* First, change the name ( ie - 'Happy Town' or 'New Deal Town' ).
* Next, fire the old management ( might as well get Sinclair back, it didn't look a tenth as bad when he ran the place ).
* Repair the roof properly, so everyone isn't likely to be drowned/crushed at any moment, and fix all those slow leaks.
* Haul the bodies and trash away - nothing smells of 'hopeless' more than abandoned corpses left in the streets.
* Give the place a new coat of paint ( and fix that shredded wallpaper ).
* Get rid of the Lamb Cult paraphernalia - no more delusions, please. Ding Dong Sofia Lamb is Dead ...
* Boarded up windows and doors - gone. Debris blocking passages - gone. Shrieking insane armed people walking the streets - gone.
* Reactivate the AE routes so that business will be able to find its way here ( also remove/repair the wrecked Traincars ).
* New deals with other areas of the city - nice clean redeveloped low-cost housing - THAT is in demand ( attractive, when you see what everywhere else looks like ).
* Chamber of Commerce - get those businesses back - get the Diner hopping again - get that Fish Farm inside the Sinclair Deluxe running again.
* Reorganize Security to protect the residents, not to subjugate them as Sofia Lamb had.
* Get something more interesting on all those TVs - "The Delta Show" kinda bombed.
--- --- ---
This Location's History - a Progression :
* First it was a AE Train Maintenance Station - AE "Train Maintenance Station Junction 47" ( that's a alot of junctions )
* Then after being rebuilt/redeveloped ( largely by Sinclair and adding his new 'affordable' Sinclair Deluxe Hotel ) maybe its name was changed maybe to something like "Sinclair Station" ???
* Then after Sinclair was run off by Sofia Lamb, and the place was left with little maintenance under her delusional regime ( and her appointed 'Ward Boss' Grace Holloway ). It was inhabited by 'Rapture Family' Squatters for ~7 years, and became the cesspit called Paupers Drop ( the name alludes to destitute people frequently resorting to hanging themselves/suicide which was more likely to be earned under Lamb ).
--- --- ---
Paupers Drop 'Tenement' - ( Sorry It Hardly Is ) :
The writers tried to paint Sinclair as a slumlord, by showing the "Sinclair Deluxe" in a decrepit/rundown state, and labeled it a 'Tenement'. But they seem to have 'missed the boat' ( and ocean, and planet ) in their clumsy attempt to smear him for plot purposes.
The only bathroom in Pauper's Drop is in the Sinclair Deluxe Apartments ( which might as well be renamed to "The Sofia Lamb Home For The Dangerously Delusional" and "Auntie Graces Asylum" ).
THAT'S NOT A TENEMENT !! ... *THIS* IS A TENEMENT !!! pix
Compare the features of The Sinclair Deluxe as it was while Sinclair operated it --- NOT spoilt as seen 7 years later, long after Sinclair was no longer the Proprietor ( and Sofia Lamb and her ward-boss/commissar Grace let the place 'go to hell' ).
Some Deluxe Features : 
* Wallpaper !!
* Doors with working locks
* Lights 
* General lack of huge holes blasted in walls and burning gas pipes.
* Fireplaces
* Full Bathrooms and Kitchens
* Mailroom and Inn Keepers Desk
* Window Vistas
* Multiple Spacious Rooms
Sinclair probably had it build during the economic upheaval around 1953 ( when some mass-unemployment allegedly resulted when most City-Building ended - allegedly causing a Recession/Depression ). Sinclair then ran the place til sometime after Ryan was killed ( and Sofia Lamb 'crawled out of the woodwork' to start her collectivist 'new hell on earth' ).
--- --- ---
We see it NOT At Its Best : 
Paupers Drop, back in the 'old days', had well-off Rapturites visiting it - ( example - the Limbo Room ... that poster on the wall ) and probably 'other' sordid attractions back when the City was 'normal' ( band the place had been 'fixed up' alot from being a 'Hooverville' by Sinclair ). 
Would it likely become such a haunt IF the place was such a dangerous slum ( BTW, This isn't a place you take your Auto or a Taxi directly to the sidewalk in front, like what 'Rich People' did when they were 'slumming' some of the 'exciting' spots back in the Real World ... like NYC 'Jazz' Harlem in the 1920s ).
--- --- ---
Redevelopment of 'Paupers Drop' :
There are Businesses :
* A Reliable Pharmacy in Paupers Drop ?
 
* A bookstore called 'Books' 
 
* Rock Flanigan P.I. 
* The Jet Postal in the Sinclair Deluxe ... 
* The Atlantic Express (station and old maintenance facility), 
 
* Hotel "Luxury Rooms"
* Fontaine's Clinic
* Flowers
* Apartments
* Fishbowl Diner is more than a simple 'worker cafeteria' 
* Pawnshop
* The blocked storefront where Quack Medicine is being manufactured 
* A Grocery store which is no longer there.
Paupers/indigents/poor/skidrowers/squatters simply don't build things like all that.
Parts of 'Paupers Drop' by BS2 time ( and I would assume earlier in BS1 times ) actually looks to have been planned, and well built ( even though the wall scrawlings say 'workers' built Paupers Drop, but that would be ONLY the 'shanty town'/Squatter-ville which was there before ). The place looks like it was redeveloped by someone with money, perhaps Sinclair taking advantage of the slump/decline in the construction businesses. He WOULD want various conveniences for the residents of his new 'Hotel'. 'Hotel' was a common term which very often was something functioning as an Apartment building What we see in Paupers Drop, at one point, was NOT quite any kind of 'shantytown'. It is the poor condition seen after 8 years of 'new management' under Sofia Lamb and Grace Holloway that we see in BS2 Paupers Drop.
Creating NEW buildings in Rapture would be costly, so what would the Sinclair Deluxe building have been BEFORE it was a 'Hotel' ( for it to be reused ). Probably something related to the AE operations. It would be stripped down to the external shell, and then the interior Structuring rebuilt to what was needed ... ( Reusing the basic pressure-shell construction methodology of Rapture ... ) 
Why the rest of that location ( all the machinery up near the ceiling ) wasn't likewise cleaned up ? Perhaps the AE was still in operation, just no longer being a maintenance site ( with the reduction of the Mk1 AE across Rapture, it may have been redundant and used for storage ).
--- --- ---
The presence of the businesses implies additional residential areas with immediate access nearby to justify them ( even with the residential capacity AFTER I've enlarged the Sinclair Deluxe ).
--- --- ---
That 'Paupers Drop' Scrawled AE Route Sign : 
Why write only that ? There could have been ( with more imagination ) all kinds of slogans/comments ( all over the place ).
How 'bout :
* 'Welcome to The Land of Lamb' 
* 'Death to the Unbelievers' ( with a 'hand' nailed next to that ).
* 'We sacrifice for the Good of all' 
* 'Our Utopia is coming' ( what collectivists have always promised but never seem to deliver )
* "F#$% LAMB" (crossed out) ( an obvious detractor being 'corrected' )
* "Cindy is a Poopyhead" ( a Little Sister scrawling in crayon ... )
* 'Prentice, You need to fix the broken doors'
And different ones on each Station's sign - you do an overlay Asset over the same basic sign. You even can do different degrees of grime and damage of the sign boards lettering.
--- --- ---
Paupers Drop "Slum" -- Hooverville ... Really ??? :
The vagueness/brevity of the games Audio Diaries 'strikes again' ( They don't really elaborate on WHEN they were recorded, or of WHAT the 'then' situation is they are talking about ). Paupers Drop was no doubt originally little more than an ad hoc hobo-camp/favela 'under the tracks', transitioning from a RR workcamp to a place where some of Rapture's destitute found shelter ( likely happening during an early economic distress around the time city construction ended ).  
A 'slum'.   But THEN it appears to have been redeveloped with real money behind it ( Sofia Lamb might spring for a soup kitchen, but not the capitalistic enterprises we saw there ) - Which again (my theory) sounds like Sinclair's doing : Planned Development around his brand new 'Hotel' -- to improve the locale to bring in (more than indigent) customers for his 'affordable housing'.   The area probably had a better (re)name ( like "Sinclair Station" or "Opportunity Corners" or "Great Chainsville" ?  Or somesuch ).
Years later (BS2) we see "Paupers Drop" ( regaining its old name ? Or was it later worse the way Lamb ran things ? ) in a quite deteriorated state ( by even BS1 times, most of Rapture looks pretty 'slummy', as generally, Splicers aren't the 'This Old House' fixer-upper types ), so we see bare traces of how spiffy the area might have once looked.
You have to take what Sinclair says with a grain of salt, as he denigrates many people/things/ideas and uses many colorful phrases ( 'slob', 'in his rat hole', 'fat cat', 'someone in a fancy hat', 'a big fat hooker' , 'this two-bit carny ride' .....'slum' ).   Sinclair didn't think highly of people who gave up, but with practicality ( which was his hallmark ) built a place to accommodate working people who were still holding on and sought the options they could afford. 
When did you last find Fireplaces in a 'slum' apartment ?  You find those in the Sinclair Deluxe.  Perhaps 'Paupers Drop' had been a 'slum' before Sinclair showed up ( " a Hooverville" as Aunty Grace says ... It likely may have been even below 'slum' ), and then it reverted again later AFTER Sofia Lamb's sycophant Ward Boss ( 'Aunty' Grace again ... ) ran the place.  It would be interesting in a Flashback to see what that area ( it was NOT called "Paupers Drop" at the time ) looked like back in its redeveloped (non-slumlike) improved form ( a poster advertises the Limbo Room as a destination for Jazz by well-to-do citizens - like what happened in Harlem in the 1920s ).
--- --- ---
Prentice Mill ... Once I Built a Railroad, Now its Done... :
If Prentice Mill lived in this "Paupers Drop" ( ? In The Sinclair Deluxe -- BEFORE it got rundown by 'the Family's' running the place,  and their many years of neglect), He still would have been the richest person there.   I might even question if he really was 'poor', as the loans of his cash reserves were unlikely to be unsecured ( He would hold mortgages and such which could be sold later after that 'Recession' was over - That was around 1952-1953 ).
It may have been more of HIS Atlantic Express passenger system being side-stepped/obsoleted by the more flexible consolidated Metro Trolley system, and to a much less extent by the Bathyspheres ( which most people couldn't afford to use on a daily basis ).   The AE line we use in BS2 ( named "The Short Line" in the MMORPG ) was still there many years later ( possibly not 'Decommissioned', but left operating so he could 'Play Trains' with that minor set of branch lines in the Old Part of the City ), but his Great Project was basically gone ( even though the AE system still would operate carrying Freight - Similar to the way American Railroads ditched their passenger business (as unprofitable) around that same time period -- The passenger business done in by Highways and Airlines ).
--- --- ---
The Sinclair Deluxe Done For Redevelopment:
"Classy, high living on a welder's wage."
From "Hooverville" to a place affordable for the "working poor" -- Lower rent for seemingly adequate apartment space ( at least in the years Sinclair ran it ) - Where employed people could have the choice of buying more stuff, or having kids, or paying for advancement training, or saving up money, etc ... -- with the money they Saved from not being in other more expensive places.   
Consider : That bookseller ( his wife has an Audio Diary ) was living there, and his was a local shop ( owner ? ).  The Deluxe's interior (fireplaces yet) were above a mediocre quality.  With a RR Station to commute to work from, it might not have been a bad option for many people in Rapture ( and Sinclair would see that need and build it AFTER the original building boom was over ( particularly when materials and labor were available at much lower cost. ) The neighborhood looked far better than any alleged 'shanty town' ( and you need to realize how much better it was in 1958, versus later in ~1967 ) -- with the local shops and the Diner, etc ...   
If they really wanted to besmear Sinclair as a slummy hardcase flophouse owner, they SHOULD have made it a REAL lowest quality flophouse having just open bare rooms, with 'sleeping' ropes hung between the walls, on which rows of packed in down-n-out customers hung standing up ( arms hung over the ropes ) to sleep.   That would have been a sight.  ( OR it could have looked like Fontaine's miserable Poor Houses. ) But they didn't. ( The Level Designer didn't appear to get 'the Memo' that the effort was to make Sinclair look 'evil' ). Next to the unseen (not in-game) notorious 'Sinclair Spirits' should also be the unseen "Sinclair Grocery Store" to really 'milk' the customers. 
(( Seriously, the game writers are pretty clueless with their clumsy 'Smear Jobs' ))
--- --- ---
Observations :
* Limbo Room (Paupers Drop)   "Dinner $4.50"  - But there is no kitchen there.  Barnacles Flambe at your table ??  With 'Incinerate', who needs a kitchen ??? ( Except 'the Limbo Room' went WAY downhill after the Kashmir Incident, and all the 'Mayhem and Chaos' started ).
* A Brute Splicer kills another Splicer in front of you as the train arrives at Paupers Drop -- Yes, definitely all 'One Happy Family' as Sofia Lamb endlessly 'yammers on' about. Perhaps the Soylent Green bin was getting empty in Grace's territory ...
--- --- ---
Down And Out :
With 'recreational' drugs being legal in Rapture, when various people abused them and became disabled by their effects, there were no Welfare 'Freebies' and Charities might impose 'too many rules'. Paupers Drop became a likely place for such people to wind up. Later, when the area was rebuild/redeveloped by Sinclair, those derelict people would not be welcome, and would be made to move elsewhere. 
--- --- ---
--- --- ---
Parts of Paupers Drop looks to be the result of battles during the %27civil war%27, though it is strange with all the wood barricades hadn't been long previously burned to keep warm 8 years later when we see it in BS2.
--- --- --- --- ---
.
.