New York City

[dc82 1]

One of my favorite things to do with the SimCity games is to try to recreate as realistically as possible the city of New York, which is where I'm from.  I try to get everything from parks to buildings to bridges to streets in its relative position based on the terrain.  For example, I estimated the location of 59th street based on Roosevelt Island.

The map I used I got from Forkboy2's Maps - which uses a real map of the New York City Metropolitan Area.  The first few cities I've really developed are Downtown (Manhattan) and Midtown (Manhattan).  Here are some screenshots.  I've listed a couple of landmarks to keep an eye out for, those in quotes are renamed buildings that represent New York buildings. 

 

The Statue of Liberty

 

Union Square

 

Washington Square Park

Park Avenue (around the 50s)

 

FDR Drive (around the 50s)

 

Guggenheim Museum (Upper East Side)

 

Columbus Circle

New York City Region

Shot of Midtown and the traffic.  I have yet to put the lakes in Central Park, but I put in the major roads that go through the park.  I also have to develop the eastern edge of Manhattan, as well as Randall's Island, South Bronx (or "Downtown Bronx" as they recently decided to call it), Long Island City, Astoria, and the Brooklyn Border... oh and there's Jersey too...  It's cool too see heavy traffic on Park Ave. as well as Midtown as a whole.  You also have some traffic on the Triborough Bridge and the 59th Street Bridge.  Things are quieter on the Lincoln Tunnel, but then again, I have to develop Jersey.

Midtown (Chrysler Building, Grand Central Station, "Met Life Building," "Times Square Tower," Empire State Building, "Manhattan Mall," NBC Studios, New York Public Library)

Midtown East (Chrysler Building, 59th Street Bridge, Roosevelt Island Tram, Midtown Tunnel)

Midtown West (Lincoln Tunnel, Jacob Javits Center, New York Post Office, "Olympic Stadium - Jets Stadium (which may be built depending on New York's bid for the 2012 Olympics)

SE Corner of Central Park including the Central Park Zoo

Upper East Side (UES) - Gracie Mansion and the FDR Drive

Columbia University (Riverside Park, West Side Highway, Morningside Park)

Downtown Manhattan (There seems to be a lot of traffic in Brooklyn) The main highways are the Westside Highway, the FDR, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE).  You have three of the East River Crossings (Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williiamsburg Bridge), as well as the Holland Tunnel to the west.  I have yet to work on the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel.  You also have a view of Union Square down to the village area, including Washington Square Park and NYU.  Below is also attempt at Bobst Library.  The rest of NYU is replaced by the University building even though NYU is really divided by streets.

This is Lower Manhattan which has to be developed some more. You can see the Holland Tunnel at the end of Canal Street.  Freedom Tower, or the new World Trade Center Building is supposed to be built from 2006-2008, as one of the first buildings up in that area.  Rather than leaving the World Trade Center empty, I decided to put what would be there in the coming decade. Next to the tower are schools, museums, parks, and plazas.  To the east you can also see City Hall.

[dc82 1]

Here''s a map of New York City to give you an idea of how my city compares to the real thing...

[+Guest mazer327]

Nice work on the city! Looks pretty darn close to the real thing. Good work. Can''t wait to see it when you are finished!

- Mazer

[rbchaffe 9]

Wow! Nice attention to detail.

[paletexan 2]

Outstanding!!!
 
Do you have anymore screenshots of the bridge and tunnel folks ??

[+Guest]

Completely awesome! You''ve made an ex-NYer miss that wonderful city. Kudos!

[dc82 1]

haha thanks.  here''s some real-life pictures to contrast with what i have...

[Anonymous1 0]

That's really nice but rememberand Elmhurst (in Queens) should be a very poor section.

[dc82 1]

elmhurst? it''s not that bad... queens as a whole is pretty decent. i actually grew up in flushing and pretty much still go there every week. get my hair cut in jackson heights. parents have a warehouse in long island city. queens is relatively ok, although douglaston manor is supposedly very ritsy - some of the finest mansions in the eastern seaboard supposedly. i was thinking about keeping queens for the most part relatively medium to low density residential (a few co-ops here and there). i wanted to do more in queens, but it''s annoying getting the rail system and the weird road shapes near the brooklyn border (towards nothern blvd). hopefully i can get to it when school''s over in a couple of weeks.

[ACEfanatic 7]

Any updates on this?

It''s looking promising!

-ACE

[Chrise 0]

I hope so, I loved your screen captures!

[Anonymous1 0]

Elmhurst was nice like 50 years ago, then the Housing put like 50 PJ''s right under the Queensboro Bridge, and the Lefrak Orginization put up some more crappy apartments. But you''re right, Queens is pretty nice compared to other Boroughs, except Staten.

[TheGrandHooHa 0]

Grrr.... HooHa want UPDATES!

Seriously, this city/region looks very promising, give us more screenshots!

[dc82 1]

well now i have a dilemna. i wanna keep updating my new york region, but w/ the upcoming expansion back i''m hesitant. new york is full of these specialized transportation extras such as avenues (Park Avenue, Northern Blvd, etc.), elevated trains (4, 5, 7 trains, etc.) i guess i can work on jersey ''cuz i mean, what''s there in jersey. heh heh j/k. but yeah i''ll see what i can do.

[kormer 0]

I kinda had the same thought with my own city, but decided to stick with it anyways.  When the expansion pack comes out I can always go through and demolish each city in the region one at a time and rebuild them, and it wouldn''t be hard since large amounts of demand will be built up already.

Now as for jersey, theres um, well, err, ok can''t think of anything, but if I do I''ll let you know.

[bazookaDave 0]

As an NYU student who lived on 14th street last year, I was entertained to no end by the shot of Union Square and Washington Square. You did a great job with the Union Square area. I particularly like the use of the Smith Tower (?) as the Con Edison Building.

Good job with the NYU campus, which is pretty much impossible to replicate, at least you were able to get the general area of it. The Arc de Triomphe is too big to be the Washington Arch, but hey, at least it's not covered in scaffolding constantly like the real arch is. Bobst looks like it lost a few stories, but I had no trouble picking it out.

Amazing job so far. It's hard to believe how close it is to the real thing.

[Jhipolito 27]

You have simply BLOWN ME AWAY with your creation; I have been waiting to see something like this since SC4 was released.  Kudos to your patience.  I look forward to more.

 

Jim

[SkyTearer 10]

Simply the most realistic city I have ever seen! Keep up that damn good work!

[Ralley22 1]

Really cool City. Its the best city Ive ever seen

[comdude21 6]

Wow, this is a truly amazing simcity version of NYC! All of it, central park, union square, everything is incredibly accruate to real life!

[+Guest]

VERY impressive! I've been to NYC only for a week, but I can safely say this is by far the best NY simulation I've ever seen. And besides that, it's one of the best SC4-cities in general in my opinion! Please go on, I'm desperate to see more of this. Great work dc82!

Now I'm even more impatient for the Twin Towers to be released, just to see them in your city! Or will you wait for a model of the new Liebeskind-buildings?

[hunter 0]

it's so damn realistic. keep it up

[+Guest]

I know looks like NYC but needs more NYC buildings

[simbuilder 1]

I must say, that is a Awsome city! How did you do it. Do you live in new york, because it seems like it. You know where to put everything. A Awsome job indeed

[The_Dalai_Llama 15]

That's an awesome city.  So much detail.  Everything looks great!  I really hope you could finish the entire region, and have one of the best regions ever created.  Great job.

[Arthas 0]

nice city keep up the good work

[retep 0]

Very fine, but I must ask... How do you make the underground highway?

[simbuilder 1]

Man, dc82 was on yesterday, around 11:00 pm {est} I was hoping he wouls update this. To bad

[JasonW 0]

Very cool stuff!

[bosco 0]

Wow, that's an excellent representation of the city.  Have you noticed if things like traffic, crime, wealth, desirability and so on in the game are similar to those in real life?  Just curious to see how "sim" Simcity is.