Staunton Island

**Staunton Island** is a borough in Liberty City. It is the central island in the city and the main center of commerce and business in Liberty City.

## History

Liberty City was established in 1798, and the town limits were just about at the southern tip of Staunton Island. The town was a cow pasture with a church and few houses all up until the phone was invented in 1876. Immigrants and other Americans started moving into the city and Staunton Island grew rapidly. By 1890, most space in Staunton Island was already built out. Large tenement buildings and tall buildings scattered the wide streets on the island. As of 1910, most businesses and companies in Liberty State had their headquarters and operations from Staunton Island. Soon as the growing middle class needed more space, they bought out the majority of tenement buildings and demolished them before building supertall skyscrapers. This started at the south at the island and continued further north as years went by. The poor people living in Staunton Island were often just threatened out of their buildings out to the street or given a short notice before their buildings were demolished and replaced with expensive condos.

During the 1940's, Staunton Island was a entertainment capital, hosting many shows, and it was a popular place to reside for the middle-class and elite. Just like the neighbouring Portland borough, the uptown part of Staunton Island suffered crime and drug abuse problems beginning in the 1960's. Fort Staunton was the worst neighbourhood in the city during the 1970's, even worse than Portland's most notorious ones. The police ignored Fort Staunton and mostly focused on the middle and lower parts of the island. Crime, drugs and prostitution was common in Uptown during the

1970's, all up to the 2000's when the city started clearing up the neighbourhoods and also demolished the entire Fort Staunton neighbourhood, replacing it with the Staunton Plaza, which also will have middle-class condos. Right before Fort Staunton's demolition. It was nicknamed 'Little Italy' and had a major presence of Italian Americans.

Since the early 2000's, the government has done some improvements to better the life for the city's poorest. Several medical and rehab programs were enacted across the city in 2005, and lifted some 3,000 people out of health related problems. Some projects to rebuild some poor condition housing blocks was also started in the late 2000's.

## Problems

### White-collar crimes

Several neighbourhoods have a high presence of white-collar crimes such as fraud and money laundering, especially neighbourhoods in Downtown and Midtown.

### Street crime

The Uptown parts of Staunton Island has a lot of street crime. Prostitution, robberies, murder and car thefts are very common. The Downtown and Midtown areas does not have as much crime due to little unemployment and the fact that most residents there have middle-class jobs.

## Fire department

The FCPD has major presence on the island. The FCPD has a station in Belleville Park. And the station is reported to be the most functionable out of all fire departments in the city. The station was built in 1889.

## Hospitals

Staunton Island has the Carson General Hospital which was established in 1973. The hospital is the best hospital in the city by reviews because it gives patients a better treatment than the rest of the city's hospitals. The hospital was expanded in 2000 with a western wing. Before the Carson General Hospital was established, there used to be numerous privatized hospitals around the city, altough these were banned in the 1980's.

## Police department

The LCPD has their police headquarters in Torrington, which is the main station and offices for the LCPD. The police has mostly presence in Midtown and Downtown neighbourhoods, where they investigate in white-collar crimes along with other anti crime intelligences. Street crime on Staunton Island has recieved little attention.