Downtown

## Overview

Downtown is the commercial and architectural heart of Titan City. Packed with skyscrapers, high-rises and public buildings, it’s the place where everyone wants to have their tower, and where everyone wants to have their tower that’s bigger than that guy’s tower. Downtown is busy 24/7, always busy with activity and traffic of all kinds.

## History

From the early years of the Steward’s Bay colonies through the turn of the twentieth century, this area contained a crowded, busy assortment of offices, apartments, government buildings, and stores. The fire of 1908 reduced the entire area to charred rubble.

This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. City planners redrew the area’s layout, replacing the tangle of winding, narrow streets with a grid of wider thoroughfares suited to automobiles. More importantly, the demand for new construction lured visionary architects and builders from all over the world. In the 1920’s and ‘30’s, its skyscrapers achieved worldwide renown. The “shining spires of Titan” became as symbolic of the city as its burgeoning hero population. Even today, no image of Titan City is more iconic than that of a hero perched on an elaborately molded skyscraper, standing watch over the city.

Building continued in the decades after World War II, adding gleaming glass-and-steel International Style towers to the Deco architecture of Downtown. Like the downtowns of many other American cities, the Skyscraper District experienced some economic malaise beginning in the 1970’s, but it never grew as severe as in some other cities. Today, only the area around Common Street still looks depressed and deserted.

Several buildings suffered serious damages in Hurricane Atlas, and a few even collapsed. Most of them have now been replaced with Postmodern equivalents. The new construction also finally jump-started a project that had been discussed since the 1930’s: an attempt to connect skyscrapers with a network of skywalks and platforms, creating a true “vertical city.” Even more surprisingly, airship traffic, gone since before World War II, has recently returned to the area, with aerial visitors ranging from blimps to more unwelcome ones like the Aether Pirates. The last decade and a half has seen a rebirth of business and tourism in downtown.

## Cape Chasing

Downtown is home to a huge, wildly eclectic range of superbeings and superpowered groups. Some of the more frequently glimpsed groups include enforcers of the Black Rose, the Aether Pirates, and the ePunk Radicals. Prominent supers often seen in the area include Captain Orbit (at the Orbit Room), the speedster Celerity, and a host of others. Nearly every prominent hero and villain in the city has fought in or at least passed through Downtown on multiple occasions.

## Locations

* **Liberty Building**: Titan City’s tallest skyscraper.

* **Orbit Room**: A popular hangout for crimefighters.

## Neighborhoods

* **Armistice Street**: Home of many of the largest skyscrapers within Downtown, with the typical building standing between fifty and seventy stories in height, and are of the “International” style. Most structures appear to be reflective glass and steel with echoing interiors, and are homes to the biggest of the big businesses, including such gems as the Titan City Stock Exchange.

* **Common Street**: The least wealthy neighborhood in all of Downtown. Common Street was developed in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s and suffered greatly in the economic downturn of the 1970s, with many of the buildings in need of repair, as are the sidewalks. The latest attempt to revive Common Street is a planned mixed-use development that has been under construction for a number of years. The average building height in this neighborhood is 50 to 60 stories.

* **Fitzgerald Square**: The buildings one would find in Fitzgerald Square are eclectic in style but are often early, pre-Deco. They tend to be of a more modest size than other neighborhoods in Downtown. Some structures date back to the first few years after the Great Fire of 1908, and even some early “skyscrapers”, which are now barely tall enough to call a mid-rise. This neighborhood is a popular tourist destination, featuring the open Fitzgerald Square itself with a statue to the city’s first mayor, Anthony Fitzgerald. The average building height in this neighborhood is 20 stories.

* **Fountain Street**: Fountain Street was built up during the skyscraper race of the 1920's with the typical building running between fifty and sixty stories in height, and are of the “Art Deco” style. Ornament and decorative features are common, providing many places for characters to perch on the buildings. There are some residential and retail locations in this neighborhood, but most of the buildings are primarily offices.

* **The Skywalks**: Described as the neighborhood over neighborhoods, the Titan City Skywalks are a series of bridges and public areas both open and enclosed that link the many towers in the center of Downtown. The Skywalks alone bring a large number of tourists Downtown and allow people to enjoy themselves on the open rooftops in parks, gardens, and open-air restaurants.