Nyhaven: Views From Within (AIN)

[dedgren 830]

Another CJer struggling with custom interchange building.  Your approach continues to make for a good, solid read.

Count me in- I'm a fan.

[dadyrghluv 8]

very cool stuff. i hope the olympics go off w/o a hitch!

[GreekMan 246]

Just saw your CJ, very good. I hope you don't stop. I think you could get a trixie for best city planner. good luck and i await the next post.

[S1acker 0]

Fantastic update as usual. Can't beleive I only just noticed it! Great to hear you're officially bidding for the Simlympics, i look forward to seeing more of Nyhaven. Ps i love the way you make interchanges.

[Charles Rodulfo 0]

Those were really olympic sized headaches, good thing you found ways to do something about it. I'm liking this CJ and I'll check it whenever I see it in the 1st page. Keep it up mate!

Take Care,

Charles

[jacqulina 162]

beautifull work and pics i love those night pics they are so scenic,wonderfull work all round

[Jersey_17011 0]

I love how it is told from and engineers perspective. i can't wait for more updates, btw great downtown and outlying suburbs.

[woodb3kmaster 342]

First, to reply to all the new comments.

RushHourFreak, dedgren, dadyrghluv, GreekMan, S1acker, Charles Rodulfo, jacqulina and Jersey_17011, thanks for all your support! It's thos eof you who reply that really keep this CJ going, and I'm glad you all like it. I don't know about my chances of winning a Trixie, but I'd be honored if I were even in the runnings. Meanwhile, I'll keep doing what I enjoy (this CJ) whenever I can. Once again, thanks so much for replying!

Next, a little updated information. I had to change the monorail from the previous update to a regular railroad because the monorail was causing a key conflict in the airport tile that caused it to crash. I'll make sure to let Voltaire know about this, as I'm sure the conflict involves his RMIP-2, or some part of it. Meanwhile, Nyhaven continues to grow, and is now within reach of 1 million inhabitants. That milestone will get its own post when I reach it. And now, it's time for a new update...

As I sat at my desk, I looked out the window toward the river. At that point, I had a thought: Wow, that waterfront is really underdeveloped. We need to fix that if we want to host the Simlympics, and quickly. Immediately, I went over to Jane's office; she would know how to fix this situation. After all, she had designed the redevelopment of Midtown, and look what a success that was! I had a tremendous amount of respect for her...

I refocused my attention on the task at hand. When she had a minute, I told her about my realization. She knew a good idea when she heard one. "I know exactly what you mean," she said. "Let's work together on this to create a really solid plan."

As far as I was concerned, those were the magic words. I couldn't resist the opportunity to spend some more time with Jane if my life depended on it. Erm, excuse me while I wrest control of this monologue back from my subconscious...

We decided to break the project up into two phases, since the area we wanted to work on was such a long stretch of shoreline. First, we would extend the shore out into the Columbia from the cruise terminal to the Main Street bridge. Jane came up with the ingenious idea to incorporate a small aquarium into this part of the project, and I made sure there would be enough room for all the necessary facilities. It wasn't long before we had a contractor to do all the work.

The first step was to clear the waterfront that would be expanded, so the mayor had to redirect the cruise ships to Riverside Heights until the new port was ready. Meanwhile, our contractor built the seawall at the new waterfront and began pumping out all the river water from the job site. Within a month or two, the new landfill area was almost dry.

A while later, I went for a visit to the site and found a huge slab of dirt where once the Columbia rolled by. I was throroughly impressed. 

Soon, the seawalls were dressed up, roads were paved, and the cruise ships were back where they had been. As part of the project, an old derelict apartment building was demolished to improve the area's appearance. A few shops were under construction along the new waterfront, and all that was left was landscaping and the new aquarium.

Once everything was done, I was astonished at just how much the waterfront had changed. Now, it was beautiful! Plenty of other citizens agreed; all kinds of construction was going on near the new park.

Now it was time to ruen our attention to the stretch of coastline from the other side of the bridge to the Broadway Pier. For many years, the pier had been the only nice part of the waterfront, but now that was about to change. However, it would have to be rebuilt to accommodate the expanded shoreline, but that wouldn't take too long.

The first steps for this stage of development were basically the same as they were for the now-completed northern section of the waterfront: building a seawall and filling in the area behind it.

Once broadway was extended, the pier could be rebuilt, just as it was. This side of te development was even easier, since there were no special facilities to be built. Jane and I both wanted to see some sort of amusement park built there, but there were no interested companies at the time. Nevertheless, I'm sure someone will see the value of this new real estate someday...

At last, after many months, the project was finished! Everyone in City Hall was excited, since now we were even more secure in our bidding chances for the Simlympics. We just couldn't wait to hear the ISC's results!

[Schulmanator 5,812]

Great update! That's quite a face lift for the waterfront. The city is doing well. I think Nyhaven should be giving the designers a nice bonus!

[PhatHead 248]

Dude you got a Phat City.

Like the pics How large is the region. Keep up the great work. Go Bruins!!!!

[GreekMan 246]

very nice redevelopment. I can't wait for more

[Simsknight 1]

how exactly did you fill in the land like that without destroying buildings around it

[Duke87 1,070]

^^very carefully, and saving often, I presume.

I like where you're going with this. If only engineering upgrades was this easy in real Life!

Environmental impact report? Community hearings? what are those?

I enjoy the Robert Moses-esque brute force approach, though.

[raul39 0]

Wow! Very nice cj you have here. I asume your a civil engineer, right?

I can't wait for the next update!

[tknoff87 0]

I've really enjoyed this CJ it is quite fun to read it, both a high quality story and interesting high quality pictures

[patriots_1228 51]

hey im gonna reveiw tomarrow or later today ok? it looks pretty good from what ive seen

[dadyrghluv 8]

w00t u get a review from the critics yea. i love the title page u got on this new update. nice use of photoshop(i would imagine thats what it is). yea , i'd say the waterfront has had quite the facelift. even added a amusement park.

goodjob so far, and look forward to the review and a new update!

[Mike the Mayor 51]

Wow! Wow! I usually wait for at least 3 pages to be done but having seen yours I'm jealous. Great work so far. I love the way you've put your stories together.

How high do you want your regional population to be?

Edit: How did you expand the land more to make way for your new waterfront? I won't mind if you don't want to tell me because it's worked wonders on your city.

[Tommy_Vercetti3 3]

Great step by step progression! Great work!

[moganite 4]

Nice progress i would of thought that the area just been built on but you impress with the cruise port.

[rodent1989 9]

I'm not a fan of alot of CJ's but I love this one.  I didn't check this part of the forum prior to this journal.  Now I'm waiting for the update.  Keep up the good work!

[woodb3kmaster 342]

Thank you all for replying, Schulmanator, PhatHead, GreekMan, Simsknight, Duke87, raul39, tknoff87, patriots_1228, dadyrghluv, Mike the Mayor, Tommy_Vercetti3, Moganite and rodent1989! Indeed, extending the coast was very laborious, as I had to be extra-careful to avoid leveling any buildings. To this end, I worked mostly in Zoom 4, where I have enough control over the God-mode tools to avoid any undesirable effects. As always, it's great to have your support!

I may not be an engineer, but I still enjoysome of the more technical aspects of the game. Mike, I plan on expanding Nyhaven as long as I can, so the metropolitan population could exceed 2 or even 3 million by the time I'm done. However, I also plan on building another city farther west in the region, so the entire map could have a much higher population.

With that out of the way, here's today's update: A Highway Through the Ghetto.

I had always tried to avoid visiting East Nyhaven, since it was by far the poorest part of town. I had heard rumors of the various social problems the area faced, and I definitely didn't want to turn into another gangbanger's victim. However, today I had to come here on business. I had finally found the old files on Highway 404, the future Eastern Connector that would soon link Nyhaven's inner suburbs around I-103 with the recently-finished Route 830, out past the urban sprawl. I went out to the hills of this neighborhood to survey the path this new highway would take.

It definitely wasn't a fun prospect, though. These hills already had people's homes on them, and some of those homes would have to be torn down to make room for the new route. Thankfully, none of the massive projects first built in the 50s and 60s had to be bulldozed; they were safely to the south of my survey area, down in the valley.

First, I had to find a place to begin the freeway along the 103 corridor. The best place for the first interchange was in an old industrial park beside the highway. With all the gentrification going on around town, industry had been declining; a few under-used factories would surely not be missed.

This first part of the 404 was by far the easiest to build, and the new interchange was finished within only a few months. Businesses began flooding into the adjacent area once the mayor rezoned it.

The next part, however, was harder. A section of the elevated Brown Line stood in the freeway's path and had to be re-routed onto the ground. This was also the beginning of the home buyouts - never a fun thing for an engineer to have to do, let me tell you. Nevertheless, even with all the extra red tape, I was surprised by how quickly this section of the highway went up.

Now was the really grueling part of construction. It was time to run the highway up through the hills, which were sometimes quite steep and always covered in houses. This was also to be home to the first interchange with a surface street, which would need to take up as little extra space as possible.

Due to the space between the freeway and Harlandson Avenue, a different kind of interchange was needed. Overall, I think the result works pretty well.

The descent from the hills proved just as difficult as climbing into them in the first place. Not only were the slopes rather tough, there were also lots of roads the freeway had to cross along the way. Don't even get me started on how many homes we had to demolish...

The interchange with Holloway Street was a lot easier than anything that had come before. Now, at last, the project had come to the edge of development.

This was the home stretch! Now it was time to bring the highway to ground level and take it through the last few hills to Route 830.

Everyone was happy when the freeway finally opened, three years after the project had broken ground. Everyone, that is, except the thousamds who had lost their homes to the highway. I knew what had to be done: a new housing project had to be built. I was resistant to the concept, given how well they had worked out in the past; however, there was really no other viable option.

After a bit of searching, I found the perfect location on two blocks not far from the Brown Line and part of the EastRail network. It only took a few weeks to get a design and contracts.

The design called for three massive towers surrounded by eight smaller cubic buildings, with a park at the corner. Returning to East Nyhaven a coupld of months after groundbreaking, I was imprssed with how far construction had already come.

Soon after, the new projects were filled to the brim with almost 10,000 people. While it certainly wasn't pretty, at least all those people had homes now.

* * * SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT! * * *

Thanks in part to this new project, Nyhaven now boasts a population of 1 million! Here's a shot of some new suburbs in La Brea Hills, where the millionth citizen moved in:

Also, here's how the city looks at its new size:

As you can tell, I've switched to CycleDogg's excellent Columbus terrain mod, and what a difference it makes! Now it really looks like the Pacific Northwest. Click here to see the city from space.

See you all again soon! Keep your eye on Nyhaven!

[jacqulina 162]

wow now thats wonderfull updates,beautifull layout and planning,excellent shoreline and pics

[Gecko_2006 1]

Beautiful work and what a wonderful update! Three cheers for Nyhaven!

[raul39 0]

Cool update! It sure must suck for those people that lost their homes. But... oh well!

[Tommy_Vercetti3 3]

Nice aqpartment buildings. They look awesome.  Cool terrian, it's all bumpy and hilly.

[Giligone 10]

Wow, great work woodb3kmaster! Your appartment blocks take me back to my days in East Toronto. hahaha, not the nicest of places! My only concern is, from a planning perspective (I am an urban planner after all) you don't seem to be improving the plight for the impoverished sims living in those tenements! Will somebody please think of the children!!!

haha, great work!

[GreekMan 246]

nice work. i left you a PM did you get it?

[ccecill 52]

Very good waterfront project, woob. Your region is developing quite nicely. can't wait for more pics.

[storms991 0]

i reall think ur sig is 2 big.... they say my pic is 7 pixels 2 large... and they dont say crap 4 u, o and nice cj good job