Gotham City
GOTHAM CITY RE-IMAGINED?
Once a historically prosperous East Coast enclave known for the Art Deco/Gothic architecture of its brooding skyline, Gotham City has instead, to its six million inhabitants, been stigmatized by the wide-spread institutional corruption, deeply-rooted organized crime families, masked vigilantes and bizarre, costumed villains terrorizing crime-burdened citizens and businesses alike.
Gotham City Neighbourhoods
Gotham City is comprised of many neighbourhoods, each with its own unique character, and home to various Gotham institutions, both famed and, in some instances, infamous. The following list is far from complete, but serves as an introduction to Gotham nonetheless:
Gotham Central
The site of Gotham Square and Wayne Tower, Gotham Central also encompasses the Financial, Theatre and Fashion Districts. Among the city landmarks located here is the Financial District's Harding Tower, a fifty-two story office and residential edifice overlooking both Gotham Square and the Harbour, with the Fashion District the site of notorious gangster The Penguin's decadently opulent Iceberg Lounge and the city's finest Italian eatery, the three Michelin starred Il Fiore di Melanzane.
The Iceberg Lounge
Gotham Square
Once the Gotham Town's market square, now the city's signature postcard destination. Framing the cobbled, statue and fountain-bedecked Square are the offices of many of its most recognizable institutions, including Gotham City Hall, Gotham Police Department HQ, Wayne Tower (Wayne Enterprises & Wayne Foundation HQ), as well as both the Gotham City Gazette and Gotham News Network (GNN).
Gotham City Hall
Gotham Police Department HQ
Theatre District
The cultural heart of Gotham City, the Theatre District is home to both the Gotham Theatre–Built in response to the old Monarch Theatre falling into disrepair as the Crown Point neighbourhood was overrun by the city's criminal element–and Gotham Opera House. Both of these cultural landmarks owing their funding to the charitable Wayne Foundation.
Gotham City Theatre
Gotham Opera House
Upper East Side
Gotham's upper East End, encompassing the International District, as well as Embassy Row is home to many of the city’s most coveted addresses.
The world-renowned Museum of Antiquities, for one, as well as such aspirational pied-à-terre as Talia al-Ġūl's aka Talia Head's meticulously restored Victorian townhouse and, particularly of late, an ever-increasing neighbourhood of newly unveiled, stylishly flash establishments–such as Risqué, a decadently Hellfire evocative, indecency-prone nightclub catering to an unapologetically hedonistic, increasingly assertive, latest generation of Gotham’s wealthiest, most decadently inclined patrons.
Risqué
Talia al Head's Townhouse
International District
The upscale, largely residential neighbourhood is home to many foreign dignitaries and their families. At the centre of which being the so-called Embassy Row.
Gotham Museum of Natural History
Embassy Row
Themysciran Consulate
Old Gotham City
Once the city's heart Old Gotham, with its landmark, Art Deco/Gothic architecture and heritage residential blocks retains its measure of old-world tranquility, insofar as is possible amidst the crime and violence besieging the city.
Cathedral Square, named for the soaring, gargoyle-bedecked Catholic house of worship commanding the area's skyline is also the site of Gotham City Hall, and the Gotham City Police Department's HQ. Also nearby is the newly-restored Gotham Clocktower, whose old-world architecture beckons the imagination to recall a simpler time.
Cathedral Square
Gotham Cathedral
Sofia Falcone's Townhouse
Gotham Village
South of Cathedral Square, the bohemian, newly-trendy streets of Gotham Village, with its vibrant café and boutique culture pervades, calling to the young, artsy crowd and their older, prospective patrons alike. Just as with the rest of the city, however, beneath its safe, artsy veneer, danger may lurk, eager to prey upon the unwary. Among the local landmarks are the Sacred Martyr Church, White Lotus Garden teahouse and, of recent vintage, the Ático studio/gallery, where María Sofía Márquez, aka Quetzal, welcomes models and aspiring artists alike.
Sacred Martyr's Church
Burnley
Encompassing the three-hundred acre Robinson Park, gentrified Burnley is home to rows of elegant, pre-war era brownstones bordering the Gotham University campus and Mercy Hospital, with the Gotham Natural History Museum nearby as well.
Gotham University
Mercy Hospital
Omar Karîm's Brownstone
Lower East Gotham
The City's rougher districts begin with the Lower East Side's Crown Point, site of the Monarch Theatre's faded glory. Adjoining it is Gotham's infamous Crime Alley, as well as Dr. Leslie Thompkins' Free Clinic. Further South is the Narrows, a neighbourhood among home city's poorest, housing many of its most desperate residents. The area is also, historically, a hub for industrially blighted sites, such as infamously, increasingly toxic ACE Chemical Processing Plant.
In addition to being among the most dangerously crime-ridden neighbourhoods in Gotham City is also the location of its most infamous institution: The Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane.
Dr. Thompkins' Free Clinic
The Monarch Theatre
Arkham Asylum
Crime Alley
ACE Chemical Processing Plant
Paris Island
The largest of several islands dotting Gotham Bay and Harbour, gloomy Paris Island is linked to downtown Gotham City by suspension drawbridge. Paris Island being known as the site of the maximum security Blackgate Penitentiary.
Blackgate Penitentiary
Gotham Harbour
Gotham City Yacht Club
Gotham Heights
Located some twenty minutes outside Gotham City, Gotham Heights is home to the area's oldest, wealthiest families. Amongst the landmark, heritage estates belonging to Gotham's elite are Stately Wayne Manor, ancestral home of billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne: Shadowcrest, the Cavanaugh and Zatara family manses.
In addition, the rolling hills of Gotham Heights is also the site of the Brentwood Academy campus, and the newly-established Hanging Gardens mansion and sprawling, verdant spiritual retreat, amongst other such exclusive private institutions.
Brentwood Academy
Cavanaugh Estate
Shadowcrest
Stately Wayne Manor