Old City

Angel Boulevard

But, what remnants Crescent City has of a night life resides here - Angel Boulevard plays host to the Black Magic Night Club, a popular hangout that plays classier acts than its main competition, The Hole over in River North. The entire area used to be known as Theater Row, and played host to several playhouses and movie theaters back in the good old days, but no longer. The Boulevard itself takes its name from its most famous resident, the iconic angel statue that sits near where the road meets the river.

The Angel of Crescent City

The Angel of Crescent City, officially "The Angel of War Sheathing Its Sword", was built to commemorate the end of the First World War, and features the Archangel Michael sheathing his sword. The towering statue, over three stories tall, dominates a small park on the river front, and stares out over the Foundry District across the river. The park itself is covered with graffiti and vandalism, but the statue remains pristine, for some reason.

The Black Magic Night Club

The Black Magic used to be known as the Caracas Club, and Frank Sinatra played there regularly in the 50s and 60s. The Caracas Club closed down when the bad times struck, and the ownership made an attempt to go with the disco scene, but that failed also. Finally, it was sold off for a loss in 1980, and the new owner, a young enterpeneur from New York, remade the club into a dance, mosh and drink joint that manages to eek by in the city of rust. Black Magic hosts mainly metal and rock bands, the better choices amongst the local scene and some acts imported from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and the occasional rap act. The resident band, headed by a friend of the owner, is called Carnal Woe, and specializes in heavy metal.

Ol' Black Magic is known as a high hunting ground for those who like play with their food amongst the Sabbat. To change the character of the club, the owners did little by apply a thick coat of black paint to the bright wallpaper, which is peeling here and there, showing the wood underneath. The expensive carpet has never been replaced in three decades, but is stained by a thousand dropped beers and worn completely away to the bare floor in places. The stage in the back is the only hint of the once elegant past of the building - the stage is hardwood, and is framed in elegant but scratched and broken woodwork. Bands that play the venue dig the acoustics that the stage brings.

Not many places to sit in the Black Magic Night Club, except for the worn bar and a few tables way in the back. The place was built for moshing and dancing - and for fighting. The cops drop by here at least once every weekend, and the owner has learned not to spend much money on glasses.

The Valiant Hotel

The Valiant Hotel is one of the few buildings in Crescent City to maintain its former luxury. The Valiant has been in operation since the 1920s, and has played host to three Presidents, dozens of movie stars and anyone else worth mentioning who came through Crescent City. Bright gilded chandeliers look over vistas of conservative marble designs and elegant carpet. The Valiant is Crescent City's only four star hotel, and visiting executives with business with Admiral Steel often reside here. It also plays host to city dinners hosted by the mayor and other officials, as well as a few charity functions each year and the Admiral Steel Christmas Gala, invitation only of course.

The Valiant is a proud building, but its history carries a shadow over it. Bad things have happened here and hushed up, those who have an aptitude for sensing such things can tell, and amongst mediums and other residents of the city who can sense the world beyond, two things are known - one, that the Valiant Hotel is a beautiful building, and two, it is haunted as all hell.

The Grand Theater

The Grand Theater was once the pride of Crescent City's arts community, and staged everything Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams at the behest of wealthy patrons who wished to dispel the Rust Belt's uncultured reputation. But its light faded. By the 60s, the theater was in bad shape, as donors dwindled off after several failed productions and a push by the actors to embrace less conservative material. But, the company saw a savior in a young actress named Bethany Rivers, who quickly became their star attraction. Beautiful, articulate and talented, she was the daughter of an Admiral Steel executive, and with her she brought donors and prestige back to the theater.

Until the final night of the '69 production season, the last night of a successful run of a Streetcar Named Desire. Just before the curtain was supposed to rise, a fire broke out in the crowded theater. Over fifty people died in the blaze and stampede, and the theater never reopened. Now its on Angel Boulevard, boarded up, but the back entrances have long been jimmied open, though the homeless avoid it as 'unhealthy'. The Sabbat sometimes use the burnt-out theater for their own purposes.

Crescent Island

Just off the shores of Old City lies Crescent Island, a large tree-covered island that sits in the middle of the Crescent River. The limp foliage and brown trees are cut through by jogging paths and peppered with small boat docks. In happier times, the island was a place of leisure, but homeless camps are deeper in the woods and paths are rarely used. Two roads cross the island, and bridges connect it to either shore.

Downtown

The Admiral Building

The high temple of Crescent City is the Admiral Buildings, the decades-old skyscraper and headquarters of the once all-powerful Admiral Steel. The company still operates out of the building, managing the remain steel mills and selling off what of its wasting resources it can. Many floors are unoccupied since Admiral Steel's fall from its height, but the company tries to keep even that a secret, instructing the buildings managers to turn on the lights for empty floors of empty cubicles at night, to keep the facade of a vibrant company.

In front of the building is an impressive statue crafted out of bronze in the art deco style, featuring a steel worker holding aloft the hammer of industry, while standing atop a rock bearing the Admiral Steel logo, surrounded by a fountain that is run intermittently, usually only during visits from officials or other company executives. The place has almost a deathly quiet about it at times, like an old and tired man taking a breath between pretending to be young.

City Hall

City Hall is a proud corpse of a building, a Greek Revival building stained by pollution and disrepair, yellowing glass windows staring down over a browning city park with a silent fountain. Here, the Mayor and City Council keep court, full of promises of returned prosperity and grand plans of renewal, which only suckers believe.

City Hall also has the Hall of Records and the Mayor's Offices within it, and serves of the hub of what remaining honest government there is in Crescent City.

East Reservoir

Reservoir Park

The largest park in Crescent City, Reservoir Park is dominated by the body of water that lends the park its name. A wide featureless expanse of water, during the summer the better-off families use the park for recreation and the man-made lake in its center for toy boating. Swimming is not permitted. Besides the reservoir, the park has a baseball diamond, two disused playgrounds and several small stands of trees. The maintenace of the area is better than most parts of the city, but not by much. Large dirt patches run through the grass, and the concrete sidewalks are cracked and some of them completely overtaken by weeds.

Krosno

Saint Constantine's Cathedral

Sitting in the heart of the Polish section of Krosno, Saint Constantine's Cathedral is a monument of sorts, one of the oldest and most beautiful examples of the Polish Catholic style church in North America. The cathedral is a central part of Catholic life in the city, though the congregations has been aging and residents have resisted reaching out to newer Hispanic residents to join. The adjoining graveyard hosts several prominent members of the city's past, including several ex-Mayors and state senators.

The cathedral, despite the rise of crime in the city, remains open late at night for prayer... and is remarkably free of vandalism, as if lowly criminals avoiding the place in the evening.

River North

High Street

High Street has had a disreputable reputation for over a hundred and fifty years. Known for strip clubs, cheap booze and prostitution, it is the city's one stop shop for cheap thrills, and is mercilessly governed over by Irish gangs. The High Street isn't as profitable as it used to be, and whole blocks are nothing but shuttered or burnt down buildings. Still, the booze flows and the flesh is cheap, so people still spend their hard earned dollars down at "The High". High Street also plays host to several music clubs, catering to disaffected youth and even more rundown than the clubs in Old City, if that can be believed.

The Hole

If the heart of Crescent City is decay, then The Hole revels in it. little more than a cement block of a building with a plywood stage and a bar, The Hole is king of the slum clubs of High Street. People who come to The Hole want the music loud, discordant and heavy, and is the headquarters for the violent and obnoxious punk music scene in Crescent City, letting any suitably angry garage band take the stage and blast out ugly music for ugly people through all hours of the night.

Built of cinderblocks and metal doors, the inside and outside of The Hole is covered in a rainbow of graffiti and drawings, along with the cement walls of the parking lot. The place is dirty and does not make many qualms about it. If you are expecting anything more, you don't belong in The Hole. Regulars at the club take a perverse pride in the rankness of the place, as if a tolerance for filth and decay were some kind of membership card. The Hole rarely books any national or well-known acts - the management prefers cheap or free bands who don't expect much. Because The Hole really isn't much.

Laughter Island Amusement Park

In happier days when the working class of Crescent City had money to spend and weekends to fill, Laffer's Island was bought and converted into a small amusement park, rechristened "Laughter Island". The park bustled during almost all year, closing down only when the colds of winter hit and opening with great theatrics when spring came.

When Crescent City's fortunes waned, the park degraded. Several rides were left to rust, but the owner tried to keep operating the park, on less and less money. Repairs were skipped, maintenance was ignored, workers were dismissed, and finally, something went wrong. In late 70s, the park shut down after fire broke out in themed rollercoaster ride in the park, killing over twenty people. Now, the park is overgrown and falling apart, boasting a large red NO TRESPASSING sign under the cheerful but darkened Laughter Island sign and a statue of its mascot, Laughie the Clown.

The sign doesn't do much. The amusement park is the sight of many a young urban spelunkers travels, with its twisted rusting rides, Laughie's Fun House and fire-gutted buildings. Some joker put the obligatory S in front of the Laughter Island long ago, and graffiti covers much of the park... though mainly on the periphery. Deeper in, around the main pavilion and stained concrete castle, no one seems to go, or stick around long enough to dabble in vandalism.

The Wastes

Roosevelt Drive

Roosevelt Drive was once one of the bustling centers of Crescent City's West Side, featuring lines of shops, the West Side's high school and main public library, and several small parks. Now, all the stores are boarded up, the high school and library abandoned and left to rot, and the parks are little more than dusty vacant lots. Roosevelt Drive runs straight through the Wastes, and nothing but a few desperate squatters are anywhere nearby.

West Crescent High School

West Crescent High once was home to over a thousand students, but now the red brick Gothic Revival buildings lies empty, at four stories, it stands sentinel over the deserted Roosevelt Drive. The shell of a building still contains old desks piled haplessly in corners, discarded textbooks and other small artifacts of its past life.

The high school is a regular meeting place for the Sabbat of Crescent City, using its auditorium, gym and other wide spaces for rituals, gatherings and decisions. All the locks have long since broken and only a few short-lived hoboes have ever penetrated the place, so the Sabbat feel safe in doing as they please in the area.

West Branch Public Library

The old public library that stands near the abandoned high school is a sad place. When the city shut it down, there wasn't any money to store or even move the books inside. So they were left to rot through winters and summers for decades. The two story proud Greek Revival building is now full of turned over bookshelves and plains of rotting paper.

Another haunt of the Sabbat, the library is usually used for more secluded meetings, and is just as devoid of mortal witnesses. No one comes here, and where better for quiet dealing than a library?