100 Modern buildings

[Committed Hero]

33. The Twelfth Bar

A drinking establishment of one form or another has existed on its site for eighty years. The current incarnation features live jazz and (especially) blues at least five nights a week. It specializes in home-grown talent, although some regional and national acts will play there on a stop between tour dates.

The 12th is a nondescript tavern that would look normal in most working class urban areas across America. It's perennially dark, with soaped-over windows outside and stiff curtains inside. Dark wood paneling and black ceilings do little to dispel the gloom. A few vending machines against one wall sell snacks and cigarettes, the supply of which is insufficient to explain the volume of smoke in the room on a given night. Despite these apparent shortcomings, the acoustics are good and just about any spot in the bar offers a good look at the rear stage.

It is a favored haunt for mobsters wishing to keep a low profile, and the crime reporters and detectives who try to eavesdrop on them. Rumor has it that there are several tunnels leading out to secret exits, leftovers from the end of Prohibition - but patrons don't have access to the basement stairs.

 

[richtrickey]

34. Laundro-Magic

In parts of town where apartments or college dorms are plentiful, it's hard not to find a run down
but well patronized laundromat, such as Laundro-Magic. Currently operated by Robert "Bobby"
Taylor, a retired schoolteacher, the place has changed owners at least a dozen times since it
first opened in the mid 60s, but has only been renovated once in that time, so it still sports the
same rusty looking avocado green washers and dryers set into a pasty yellow painted wall
adorned with a faded, but still gaudy whimsical rainbow pattern just below the ceiling.

Bobby offers the standard self service laundry deal, 50 cents to wash and $1.00 to dry, 24
hours a day, every day of the year. In addition, dry cleaning and full service laundry services are
offered during normal business hours of 9 to 5 monday to saturday, closed on sunday.

During business hours, Bobby is usually present, overseeing his crew of 5 or 6 workers of
questionable immigration status, as well as Rusty, the elderly janitor whose been on staff here
since the place first opened 40 years ago. Rusty is friendly and talkative, sometimes overly so,
and he's the one person on staff that PCs in a game might find useful, since he's around from 8
pm to 5 am every night, and has his eyes and ears on the shadier elements who stop in late at
night to do their wash, as well as some of the drug dealers, prostitutes, gang members and other
ruffians who lurk around the alley or the row of vending machines Bobby keeps out front.
Rusty's a bit suspicious of shady looking folk, and a bit slow to warm to newcomers to the
neighborhood, but once he accepts someone as a local, he tends to treat them as an old
friend.

Laundro-Magic is a large facility, with close to 75 washers and 100 dryers, and is often packed
full of locals during the day and early evening, and even late at night the place is rarely empty.
The backrooms, where the dry cleaning machines are kept and the office is located, are locked
up at night, and all the locals who frequent the place know that Rusty only has the key to the
broom closet and the front doors, in case of some emergency that would require closing up.

 

[richtrickey]

35. Ling's Fortune Cookie

Ling's is typical of your strip mall Chinese take out restaurants, offering a variety of decent
szechuan dishes, fried rice and sodas at dirt cheap prices. Nestled between a neighborhood
video rental store and a small martial arts school, Ling's is open from 10 am to midnight, 7 days a
week, closing only for the major holidays and the Chinese New year.

Inside the shop, patrons are met with a clean but otherwise plain looking counter area, with a
large menu board (labelled in English and Chinese) hanging above the counter and 3 or 4 small
tables and the accompanying chairs nestled off to the sides. A locked door beside the counter
leads back into the kitchen, where Ling and his two teenaged sons prepare the food. Ling's
wife, and sometimes his daughter, who attends the local college now and isn't around as much,
tend the counter, taking and packing up orders and working the register, which Ling adamantly
now insists be kept with less than $40 at all times since the shop was robbed a year ago.
There's a small office wedged into a back corner of the shop, next to the walk in cooler/freezer
unit, and all other money is kept in a floor safe inside.

Ling and his family are simple folk, content with running their business and watching the latest
prime time TV shows on the old color tv that hangs from a bracket in the "dining room", and
aren't likely to be of much use to PCs, but the shop does a brisk business, and all manner of
people stop in for lunch, dinner or a late snack, so it's an ideal place to meet or look for people.
Ling's daughter, Mei, isn't around much these days, but she's fluent in Chinese and Japanese,
and is happy to make a few extra dollars helping customers with any translation they might
need. Ling and his wife are immensely proud of Mei, and will talk her up endlessly as the first in
their family to attend college, so anyone needing to see Mei can usually find out where she is,
or when she'll be around from them.

One last interesting tidbit is that Ling's doesn't serve fortune cookies, which he calls disgusting
American junk food. The name of the place is an example of his ironic sense of humor.

 

[richtrickey]

36. Overtime Sports

"Where sporting goods go into extra innings!" Shout the tv and radio spots for this new shop,
located in what was just recently the burned out shell of an old five and dime discount store.
The owner, "Big Jim" Saunders, opened the store after retiring from a short and rather
unremarkable career playing right field for the local major league baseball franchise. Big Jim, a
giant of a man at 6'5" and nearly 300 pounds, sells used and hard to find sporting gear at
discount prices, and cheerfully sponsors a handful of local little league baseball and girls softball
teams, portraits of which are proudly framed behind the cash register.

Just about any gear you can imagine can be found here, in good condition despite being used,
but Big Jim makes most of his profit these days selling to the local extreme sports enthusiasts.
Paintballers, skateboarders, BMX bicyclists, rock climbers and others can be found here
throughout the day, haggling over a price or relating their latest tale of gore and glory. The used
equipment is offered at Big Jim's usual fair prices, but new stuff, from all the latest trendy
manufacturers, carries a slightly higher price tag since Jim's the only guy in the neighborhood to
carry it.

Aside from the merchandise, Jim also keeps a batting cage area toward the back of the store,
as well as a "fast pitch" game, and is in the process of adding a rock climbing wall, as well as a
full sized skateboarding/BMX half-pipe in the lot out back.

Jim's crew is made up mostly of teenagers and twenty somethings with a taste for extreme
sports, so they're usually excellent sources of information on the local hot spots and events. Jim
himself isn't much on the extreme end of things, preferring to spend his free time sponsoring and
coaching the local kids in baseball and softball, but his short career in the major leagues has
given him some useful contacts among the movers and shakers in the city.

 

[Luthonnen]

This is one that got used quite a lot in my Uban Arcana game, but could appear anywhere with very little change.

Curious Lore
This rather unassuming store is easly missed by those in a hurry. It doesn’t even have a sign in the window, simply some gold lettering above the door.

Most people when asked to give directions mention a factor of the window display. There is a bust of Athena prominatly displayed on a pedistal in the center of the display case, and on it rests a raven, a nod by the owner to the poem that insperation for the store’s name.

It specilizes in used books, most of which are of a religious or occult nature. There is little ryme or reason to the way the overflowing shelves are arranged. In fact some have commented that the fact no ones be burried alive by an avelach is a miricle in itself. It would take someone days to find what their looking for, but the owner seems to have some sort of system and can usually find whats needed, not neccesarily what he’s asked for.

Gabriel Maxwell is the rather excentric owner of the store. To all apperances he’s somewhere in his mid 20’s though he doesn’t talk much about himself, and prying is the quickest way to be shown the door. Otherwise he’s quite willing to talk about anything, and seems to know enough to be able to offer an informed oppenion. He lives in an appartment above the store so he’s almost always available if needed.

A rarety, he’s a true mage and if one looks hard enough they may actually be able to find an actually minor magical work on the shelves. He makes a not of those who look as if they know what they’ve purchased.

He has been know to get involved in strange happenings, but rarely lets his motives be known, or even if he has motives other than he felt like it.

The only other redident that needs to be mentioned is Mrs. Poe, the raven. Many people who know he’s a mage assume she’s his familiar, she isn’t but he’d react badly if something happened to her anyway.

 

[CarlZog]

38. Silver Palms Marina Complex

Built four years ago on the site of the old shutdown Navy yard in the southern end of the city's harbor, Silver Palms is a large marina complex that includes 160 boat slips, two restaurants, shops and condominiums. It was built and is owned by the Hubbard Development Corp., which fought bitterly against a number of local groups to have the facility built (Navy veterans wanted a museum there; environmentalists and neighborhood groups were arguing for fewer slips, less commercial space and restoration of wetlands surrounding the property.) As a result, the corporation is still hated by many. Kat Jacobs, 33, is the marketing manager for Silver Palms, and the public face of the marina and the corporation. Always meticulously dressed, she'll pop up anywhere there's an issue affecting the complex's business. Effusively upbeat and perky, she can also be ruthless when business is at stake.

Three long, T-shaped docks accommodate yachts up to 130-feet in length. About two-thirds of the slips are occupied with locally owned boats whose owners keep the boats here year-round. The remaining slips are rented on short-term basis to cruising yachts that come into the city for the weekends. More large mega-yachts have been showing up for visits the last couple years. Very secretive, these yachts are crewed by professionals and the owners, or their guests, will often fly in for short visits instead of actually travelling with the yacht.

Of the year-round rentals, about 25 are occupied by folks who live aboard. Some of the liveaboards are working professionals who take the ferry from here to downtown every day; a couple are old retirees, and the rest are seeminlgy destitute eccentrics whose dissheveled boats are barely staying afloat, and don't appear to have left the dock in years. The company would love to kick them all out, but maintaining a certain amount of affordable liveaboard space was part of a deal with the city to build the place.

Among the liveaboards is Ernie, who lives on a beat-up houseboat patched with plywood and adorned with plastic potted plants on the deck. Ernie is in his late-40s but looks a lot older. He hangs out at Burt’s (see below) nearly every day, prompting jokes from the other locals. (“Just like Sesame Street, you can’t separate Ernie and Burt.”) Ernie claims to have worked in military intelligence and will entertain anyone who will listen with endless stories about how he planned the first Gulf War.

At the end of the center dock is a fueling station for boats and pumpout station (to empty the boats' onboard sewage tanks).

At the base of the north dock is "Durty Burt's", a tropically themed outdoor bar and grill. On good-weather weekends, it attracts a raucuous crowd of 20-somethings -- many of whom arrive by water on overpowered speedboats. Bert's also does a busy happy hour. The rest of the time, you're likely to find just a few people, although the corner of the bar is where the regulars -- a group of the liveaboards -- hang out. They seem to almost always be there. There is no real "Burt"; like everything here, the name was manufactured by the corporation to evoke a highly crafted atmosphere.

Rubin is the head bartender. He's a fairly large, middle-aged Jamaican and was primarily hired for his accent, which the company figured would lend credence to the tropical theme. He tolerates idiots and drunks with a smile, but won't put up with bar fights. He's been known to personally wrestle belligerents out of the place.

At the head of the central dock is a building consisting of several storefronts on the ground level and a fancy restaurant on the second floor with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the marina.

The shops include "Coastal Marine", a small marine supply store selling basic boat and fishing gear, ice and bait; "Java Bakery", a coffee and snack shop with an array of bagels, muffins, etc.; and "Ella's Boutique", an upscale gift shop owned by Ella Goldstein, who lives in one of the condos on the property.

Upstairs is "Laroche", an upscale restaurant that bills itself as “an eclectic Euro-American bistro”. The food is overpriced and not particularly good, but people come for the view. It’s “the” place to get engaged, or take your out-of-town guests. The dining room overlooks the marina, the harbor, and the downtown city lights on the other side.

At the base of the third dock, and stretching back behind Laroche and Burt’s, is a condo complex. Most of the complex is organized into three-story-tall buildings of four to six units, arranged in townhouse style. A larger 8-story building sits in the center of the complex. The units fetch $250,000 and up. A maze of sidewalks and green spaces wind among the 200 units, connecting them to the docks and to the massive parking lots on the landward side of the complex. It’s mostly occupied by yuppies and older professionals working downtown. Building and selling this aspect of the development was the real cash cow for the Hubbard Corp.