New Troy

 New Troy, Connecticut is a city of roughly two million people, situated on the banks of the Connecticut River on the Atlantic Coast.  Founded in 1804, it was a quiet fishing town until the 1890s, when immigrants began to arrive in the New World in such numbers that Ellis Island became overwhelmed and another immigration station was set up across the river from New Troy.  This station was given additional funding by a group of New England businessmen, allowing for the construction of a fine hospital and extensive transient quarters on the grounds of the station, and it wasn't long before immigrant ships began proceeding directly to Troy Station rather than being sent as overflow from Ellis.

The businessmen who invested in the Troy Station were to an extent concerned with the common good, but they also reaped the reward of their generosity in having the first chance to hire skilled and unskilled labor from the incoming throngs.  Many of these newly-hired people were transported elsewhere to their new jobs and homes, but many stayed in New Troy, swelling the town far beyond its sleepy origins in a matter of months.  By the turn of the century, New Troy had become a confusing pile of races, colors, creeds, and tongues, clumped together haphazardly and while there was relatively little crime or violence in Troy the city was considered completely ungovernable due to the fact that city administrators needed to speak eight different languages just to get through the day.

The breaking point came during the mayoral election of 1908 when someone realized that the ballot had twenty-six candidates, each of whom had the die-hard support of one neighborhood and was completely unknown to everyone else.  Confusion turned into argument, and almost escalated into violence on election day.  When the votes were counted, though, a narrow majority was found to have been given to a write-in candidate, Anatole "Tully" Tourolakis, a Greek grocer from the waterfront.  Though as baffled as the rest of the city at his election, Tully Tourolakis took office and soon proved himself the perfect man for the job.  An honest, hard-working, and charismatic man, Mayor Tourolakis brought the city together by exercising a mix of patience, friendliness, and an inability to correctly pronounce any language but his own so complete that the City Council eventually gave up and spoke English just to get him to stop trying.

Mayor Tourolakis's tenure was marked by great prosperity and a spirit of increasing commonality among the disparate neighborhoods of the city.  While the plain-spoken mayor was known for his "Tully-isms", the most famous summed up his entire attitude toward people: "Ev'rybody knows somethin', so if we put our heads together we can do anythin'"  This optimistic attitude was made manifest in both Cassandra Park and the yearly celebration of the Grand Carnival.  Cassandra Park began when Mayor Tourolakis declared that the city needed a botanical park, and that anyone who wanted to help was welcome.  The friendly challenge was met with response that became overwhelming, and when the final plans for the park were complete the total area of the donated grounds was 1,538 acres, almost twice the size of Central Park in New York City.  Cassandra Park is a wonder both of architecture and landscaping, with a lagoon and series of canals fed by the Connecticut River, bridges, three museums, an ampitheater, riding stables, an amusement park, and stretches of wildland.  Each neighborhood association in New Troy has a specific sector of the park that it cares for, and this tradition of community involvement has kept Cassandra Park a beloved public treasure.

 The other great achievement of Mayor Tourolakis is the Grand Carnival.  Every year in June (usually the week after school lets out) the city throws a week-long celebration of every culture that has contributed inhabitants to New Troy.  The traditional foods are cooked, the old flags are hung out, the traditional clothes are worn, and the old songs are sung as each neighborhood proudly proclaims its identity for everyone's enjoyment.  Everyone not actively celebrating in their own neighborhood can usually be found visiting other neighborhoods and trying out someone else's traditions for the day.  Unless they're complete boors about it no one minds, as it's all in good fun and they're all New Troy folk.  During the Grand Carnival it's more or less assumed that very little serious business is going to get conducted, so most businesses outside of the food and hospitality industries shut down for the duration.  Even those businesses can be subject to "carnie raids", where a group of people descend on a place where a friend is working and literally carry them away.  The Grand Carnival (usually) isn't complete debauchery, but it's one week out of the year where everyone lets their hair down - or puts it up, as the case may be.

"Tully" Tourolakis died in 1922, during his sixth term.  At his funeral, his widow made a shocking confession: during the election of 1908, she and a group of other women from around New Troy had rigged the vote to get Tully elected.  Irene Tourolakis was put on trial for election fraud, but after the initial shock wore off the citizens of New Troy decided that they weren't very mad about it, and the judge sentenced her to two years community service reading books to children at the City Library (which she had already been doing as a volunteer for several years).  Statues of Anatole and Irene Tourolakis can be found both in front of City Hall and at the heart of Cassandra Park.

The Roaring Twenties saw more immigrants flocking to New Troy, but by this time the city had figured out how to welcome newcomers - the first Grand Carnival after the end of WWI saw a new opening tradition, the Wet Shoe Parade, in which everyone who has lived in New Troy (regardless of origin) for less than a year is invited to march.  Unlike most parades, the Wet Shoe Parade traditionally has spectators throwing candy and little bags of treats to the marchers instead of the other way around.  Prohibition brought New Troy the same bootlegger games as the rest of the country, and the Great Depression hit the city hard but couldn't crush its spirit of community.  World War II has come and gone, bringing another wave of immigrants from war-torn Europe and Asia, but New Troy deals with it much the same as Tully Tourolakis taught it to, as "the biggest dang village in America".

The Neighborhoods

Though New Troy has a strong sense of 'city pride', the citizens of New Troy still maintain their 'homeland pride' as well.  Nobody is required to live anywhere, but the individual neighborhoods still tend to be pretty homogenous and ethnic.  It's a point of pride.  Where else in 1950 America is the Mayor a Frenchman, the Police Chief a Czech, half the Fire Department Chinese, and a mosque shares a street with a Catholic church, a synagogue, and a Shinto shrine?

Here are some of the neighborhoods of New Troy:

Amsterdam Heights - Settled mainly by Western European Jews, Amsterdam Heights is an upper middle class neighborhood, home to a great many doctors, lawyers, bankers, and other such professionals.  Rathaus University, one of New Troy's three institutions of higher learning, can be found here.  The belltower at Rathaus is on one of the highest hills in New Troy, and gives a spectacular view of Cassandra Park to the west.

Shanglan - This bustling district on the West Shore is home to both a large portion of the docks and the local Chinese population.  Though the bigger cargo and passenger ships dock elsewhere, Shanglan is where most of the local fishing boats tie up.  As a result, the Shanglan Fish Market is a very lively place.  Rumors abound of sinister dealings in the back alleys such as opium and white slavers, but nobody takes those very seriously.

Blue Jamaica - "BJ" is on the East Shore, across from Shanglan, and is actually built mainly over the water itself.  Pilings have been sunk into the coastal shelf, supporting a network of boardwalks and buildings, many of which are painted with bright colors and look more ramshackle than they really are.  The docks here are over deeper water than Shanglan, so the larger cargo and passenger vessels tend to dock here.  The largely-Caribbean population works the docks and the tourist avenues, fitting their homes in and around the warehouses.  Tourists assume the Blue in Blue Jamaica refers to the water beneath their feet, but in truth it's got more to do with the cold New England winters, during which the population of BJ bundles up like colorful mummies.

West Kerry - Founded in the 1840s by Irish refugees, West Kerry was once a small borough lying upriver from the fishing town of Troy. Since merging with New Troy in the 1890s, West Kerry has swelled into a large, predominantly Irish neighborhood, where both Catholics and Protestants coexist peacefully. Its population is primarily of the working and lower middle classes, and is home to Saint Brendan's Cathedral, the largest Catholic church in New Troy.

Lafayette - South of Amsterdam Heights, Lafayette was originally established in 1818 by a small group of Bonapartist French who had despaired of seeing their beloved Emperor reinstated.  Their neighbors in Troy considered them odd but harmless, and mostly left them alone.  Later waves of French immigrants swelled the hamlet into a small town and then a borough of New Troy.  Today, Lafayette is on the whole a charming neighborhood with sidewalk cafes and flower boxes at the windows - at least by day.  At night, the seedier side of Lafayette becomes more apparent, as the basements of the neighborhood go into business as gambling parlors, dance halls, burlesques, and the occasional less mentionable form of entertainment.  Some buildings even have tunnels between their lower levels, making them an excellent and very literal place to 'lie low'.

Mezzogiorno - This cozy Italian community borders West Kerry on the north and east. Founded in 1880, its original inhabitants came from all over southern Italy, primarily Sicily. Mezzogiorno had a fierce rivalry with the Irishmen of West Kerry for nearly thirty years, until Mayor Tourolakis successfully brokered a peace between the two sides. The rivalry now continues in the form of an annual baseball game/fundraiser event, whose proceeds are donated to charity. The game is widely attended not only by Mezzogiazzi and West Kerrymen, but by people from all over New Troy.

Vanistrodna - Although some very odd people have come to New Troy over the decades, there are extremely few odder than the Vani.  The Vani arrived in 1920, six months after the end of WWI, a group of roughly five hundred men, women, and children, all of them long white hair, light brown skin, and and a seemingly Nordic cast to their features.   Their exact origin is unknown, but their appearance and their strange accents lead many to assume they are from somewhere around northern Europe, perhaps an uncharted region near Scandinavia.  At any rate, the Vani were admitted with the full approval of the United States, and no further Vani immigrants have ever come.  Vanistrodna is the smallest and newest borough of New Troy, an area of rocky cliffs on the northeastern side of town.  The insular Vani have carved their homes out of these cliffs, and while not many have been invited inside those who have say that the Vani are civilized but live simply.  The Vani do interact with the rest of the city and their children do attend public schools and make friends outside of their community, but even those who have known a Vani for years often feel like there is always something being held back.  During the Grand Carnival, the Vani host public dances and religious ceremonies (which are often the same thing, apparently), but they have yet to explain anything about their origins or history.  Gossip claims that the only person who's ever gotten a straight answer out of the Vani is Tully Tourolakis, and whatever secrets he learned died with him.  "They're good people," he said in an interview afterward.  "What more do we really need to know?"  Many of the Vani make their living as sculptors and artisans, as they seem to have a strong tradition of making beautiful and functional objects from stone and wood.

Bryton - The heart of the West Side, Bryton is the financial and business district.  The largest banks and exchange houses are here, as are the headquarters of several companies.  The largest of these is Bryton Industrial, a steel manufacturing company that branched out into building destroyers and tanks during the war.  Since then, BI has focused on merchant vessels and is considering going into aviation.

Vulcan's Anvil - Also on the West Side, Vulcan's Anvil is a tough working-class neighborhood full of factories and blue-collar bars.  The Department of Defense acquired several plants in this area during the war, most of which have been either sold back to private concerns or been simply abandoned.

Fort Lampton - A US Army base not far from New Troy, Lampton is a less-active facility used mainly as storage and administration for the region.  Usually less than two hundred soldiers are stationed at this base at any given time, to guard the various records and stored munitions.

Ealing Street - Despite its name, Ealing Street really is a neighborhood rather than a single thoroughfare.  It first became a distinct neighborhood in the early 1920s when an English theater company visited New Troy on tour and liked it so much they decided to open a permanent branch.  Theater took on craze proportions for a few years, and theater after theater was built.   To this day Ealing Street is an artsy little neighborhood, packed with performers of all stripe and performances ranging from the highest of highbrow to the last gasps of vaudeville.  Movie houses have begun to appear in Ealing Street, and while many of the residents disdain them they do seem here to stay.

Darmstown - Darmstown is probably the fastest-growing neighborhood on the West Side, and it's quickly becoming the NTPD's biggest headache.  To put it simply, Darmstown is where the German expatriates gather.  When they started to arrive in the late 1930s, New Troy welcomed them as warmly as anyone else, but during the war years more and more people swelled the neighborhood and even New Troy's famous well of kindness began to run dry.  Even worse the criminal element came with them, fanning the flames of distrust and war tension while exploiting it for their own profit.  Despite the Marshall Plan's success in Europe, Darmstown has continued to see a steady influx of immigrants and Darmstown today is a jam-packed neighborhood of poor and easily-exploited people who don't believe they can trust in the city's famous goodwill and acceptance.  That the criminal element here is organized is an open secret, and the disreputable forms of entertainment here are more prevalent, more blatant, and much less fun-loving than the basement clubs of Lafayette.

Little Bhopal - The Indian neighborhood in New Troy has actually shrunk in recent years, ever since India gained its independence.  Still, the Spice Market is a popular place for traders of all nationalities to come and sell their exotic seasonings, and the Temple of Ganesh attracts lots of visitors daily.

Honmaru - The original Japanese neighborhood in New Troy, Edo-chan, has been absorbed into Shanglan.  In 1942, with the implementation of Executive Order 9066, the Army received orders to clear the residents of Edo-chan to an internment camp along with all other Japanese residents of the New England area.  However, quick thinking on the part of Mayor Sergei Kropotkov lead to a subversion of the move.  Simply put, the city of New Troy offered to donate a site for the camp and construct and maintain it themselves, sparing the Army of most of the expense and hassle.  The Army accepted despite perhaps smelling a rat, and the Mayor called for a volunteer effort to build not just a camp, but a new neighorhood with proper housing, shopfronts, schools, and even a Shinto shrine.  The response was more than enough to get the job done, and the neighborhood of Honmaru was born.  While intended as a means of resisting the spirit of Executive Order #9066, the neighborhood was still built with a security perimeter to satisfy the letter of the law as well.  During its tenure as an internment facility, Honmaru received constant support from the City and its citizens.  After the end of the war the perimeter fence was torn down and Honmaru officially became part of New Troy.  In the five years since, few of the internees have moved away, and while the neighborhood is a little more insular than most it's slowly getting used to being part of the community again.

Station Square - On the West Side of the river, Station Square is the home of Troy Station, the immigration center that made New Troy into what it is today.  The station itself is still in use, but a museum, a vistor's center, several boarding houses, and a large park have been built around the Square.  Directly north of the square is the Civic Arena, a large outdoor arena that serves as home to a variety of sporting events as well as the kickoff party for each year's Grand Carnival.  City Hall sits at the north end of the Civic Arena.

Old Troy - The original village of Troy has long been replaced by this neighborhood, a tidy area of brownstone townhouses and family businesses.  It has no particularly distinctive flavor, which in a way makes it quite distinctive among the colorful communities of New Troy.