Nyhaven: Views From Within (Nuclear City - 5/8)

[Ryan B.]

Zach, congrats on the OSITM designation!

Those squares look awesome - just like a city park in my imagination!

[Airbird]

Great thread, just spent the last 30mins reading over the 11 pages of updates and comments. I've just started to get in to this game and I'm fascinated with the community. I'm a Architect myself and can't stop creating bats and building cities! I'll be stealing some of your ideas 

[Scarton]

Congratulations on O.S.I.T.M!   Those parks are excellent and I'm sure your sims enjoy them! Thanks for telling me what the tower was, I never have looked at the detail of the tower before.  

[woodb3kmaster]

meinhosen: Welcome to Nyhaven, and thank you for your congratulations and kind words! I'm especially glad you like my squares (including the new ones I've only posted in my lot thread); they took quite a while to make.

djvandrake: Thank you so much!

memph: Welcome, and thanks! I use a lot of different one-cell-wide residential buildings; here's a more-or-less complete list with download links: Cast Iron Lofts, Vanderaap's Oudezijds Achterburgwal 66-66a, BLaM Haven Lofts, Odd from Sweden's New York Rowhomes, Jeronij's Euro Residential Set, SimGoober's MEGA Residentials Volumes 1 and 2, homefryes's American Four Square homes, and Mattb325's Regency Terrace. Happy downloading, my friend!

Battlecat: Thank you so much! It's the little details that make a lot great, IMHO.

Alex (Driftmaster07): Thanks!

Glowbal: Thank you! Yes, those Dutch rowhouses grow like weeds in my cities. Nice to see a piece of home in Nyhaven, isn't it?

Jason (Albus of Garaway): I'm glad you would - and you'll get to download them soon. Thanks for stopping by, my friend!

Ryan B.: Thank you, and congrats to you too for posting Nyhaven's 200th reply here at Devotion! I have a special treat for you for making that historic post:


This is Burgess Square, which will be included in my upcoming square pack. I hope you like it!

Airbird: Steal away, my friend; my ideas are yours for the taking! Thanks for commenting!

citycapitalizer: Thank you very much! It's my pleasure to help readers like you find what they like from Nyhaven.





All the time that those barges were dumping dirt into the river, I was busy working on a new infrastructure project. While the realignment of the Hill Line would serve the newly-reclaimed land pretty well, I knew it would eventually need a quick connection to the wider world. With that in mind, I put together a team to design an extension of one of the commuter rail spurs we had built as part of the rail beltway a few years earlier.



Although this project would eventually link this spur with downtown and Central Station, the first phase was a simple extension from the spur's temporary end in the neighborhood of Slauson Valley to the basement of ColumbiAir Arena, between midtown and uptown. That basement was big enough that it could be converted into a rail station, conveniently enough. Along the way, the spur would connect to the station in the Heights Industrial Park.

Our initial plan was to build most of the extension at-grade. Here's why:



Between the Heights Station and the arena, three subway lines cross the path of the extension. We knew that if we were to build the extension in a tunnel, it would have to be pretty deep to cross those other tunnels. Building on the surface would have avoided that problem and been much less expensive. However, when we presented the original, at-grade plans to the public, there was a huge backlash against them:



The comments we received after the scoping period forced us to reconsider our plans. It was a tough choice, but we eventually decided we had to build most of the extension underground after all. This decision was not without benefits, however: it meant that we could have a more direct line to the arena while still serving Heights Station. After a few more months, we finally broke ground.



There was already a station at the old end of the spur, and since we had decided to build a short viaduct over the nearby road and avenue, it had to be temporary relocated. In November of 2396, the temporary shelters were in place a couple blocks to the east.



While the new alignment would avoid the acquisition of many more houses than the old one, the viaduct still needed some room to be built, and so a few homes still had to face the wrecking ball. Fortunately, with the city still growing like crazy, their former residents were able to find new abodes quickly.



Work on the viaduct got stared soon afterwards, and ti kept going for a few months, through the rain and cold weather.






At last, in September 2397, the viaduct was finished and a new permanent station was built on the site of the old one.



Further west, the at-grade alignment ended inside the Heights Industrial Park. At that point, it was time to bring in the tunnelers.



Tunneling was the most time-consuming part of this project. The TBMs moved through about 60 feet of ground each day. Even so, it only took a few months to reach Heights Station.



As we reached the subway crossings, some new technology helped us out a lot. The good folks at Z Transport Systems had recently invented a new way to keep tunnels separate, and we put that method to good use as the tunneling continued.



From the ground, the only way to know that Z's new technology, codenamed SURC, was being used was to look at the sidewalk. Above the SURC tunnel sections, the pavement was a bright reddish-pink.



The extension finally opened with great fanfare in February 2399. People were grateful to have a quicker route to ColumbiAir Arena, but everyone was waiting for the second and final phase of the project. That part would get underway soon enough...

[Scarton]

That was a great update!  It's great to see that efficient transport is appreciated in Nyhaven. There is another building that I don't know what it is. It's in the 2nd to last picture on the side of the highway nearest Madison Square Garden and it looks like a government building.

[Albus of Garaway]

Great update! I'm happy to see that many of those at-grade crossings were replaced with viaducts. Things will be much safer now for the citizens!

[Battlecat]

Nice job on the update, you've really covered most of the normal issues that come up when a new rapid transit line comes through!

That viaduct looks pretty cool!

[Ryan B.]

Great update - and thanks for the square!  I'm honoured!

[djvandrake]

Those viaducts look great and I love the under construction shot in the rain!   

[KoV Liberty]

Congrats on the 200 replies!

[woodb3kmaster]

citycapitalizer: Thank you very much! Without good transportation, I don't think this MD would exist, so I appreciate your comment. That building you noticed is the Police Administration Building, on the STEX.

Jason (Albus of Garaway): Thanks! I know how much more desirable grade separations are when building rail lines, due to my avid following of LA Metro Rail expansions, so you're right on with that comment. Come back soon, my friend!

Battlecat: Thank you! As I told Jason above, all my knowledge about what goes into building new rail lines comes from watching local construction projects here in LA.

Ryan B.: Thanks - and you're very welcome! You deserve it for helping me achieve such a great milestone.

djvandrake: Thank you! I'm glad you appreciate my Photoshopping.

Alex (Driftmaster07): Thanks! I'm so happy to have made it this far at SC4D.



Well, if you didn't already know, my first STEX upload in six years, the Woodworks Square Pack, is now online and available for download here. I know some of you have been anticipating this release, and I thank you for your support!

Now then, on to today's special:



This marina, near Overland Park (itself the subject of an earlier special), recently went through a major expansion, thanks to my downloading more of Pegasus's excellent CDK3-OWW2 Marina collection of lots. I think they're the best marina lots out there, they're that good! More recently, I built an even larger marina in my region's new big city, Astoria, which you'll get to see pics of before long.

EDIT: I almost forgot to mention that Nyhaven has surpassed 10,000 views here - another great milestone! Thanks to all of you who have taken an interest in this MD!

Until Thursday...

[KoV Liberty]

Your welcome! That marina looks good as well!

[meinhosen]

Nice marina.  Looks like you've got some good waterfront skills (I never mastered SC4 waterfronts).   

I like the pics from your last update about the rail viaduct being built.  Nice story for the reasons why it was built.   

Lastly, I fired up SC4 and loaded up a few of the plazas you just released on the STEX- those look even better in game than they did in the screenshots.  Thanks for sharing!

[Scarton]

That's a good marina.  Also, congrats on 10000 views!  Also, I noticed you named one of your cities Overland Park. Did you get that from the large suburb of Kansas City? Just wondering.

[Battlecat]

Nice job on that marina!  It looks great. 

[djvandrake]

That marina looks great, and I can't wait to see the waterfront in Astoria. 

[Glowbal]

The color of the sea makes your marina look great. 

[jimbo_jj]

Nice use of Peg's waterfront lots, and great marina! Looking forward to the next update.

[woodb3kmaster]

Alex (Driftmaster07): Thanks again! I'm glad you like the marina.

meinhosen: Thank you! I hope you'll approve of today's waterfront improvements as well. I also appreciate your compliments on my square pack and storytelling.

citycapitalizer: Thanks! No, I wasn't even aware that a real city called Overland Park even existed before you told me. I name all of Nyhaven's suburbs after major streets here in Los Angeles, and Overland Avenue happens to be fairly close to where I live.

Battlecat: Thank you! If you liked this one, I'm sure you'll like the even bigger marina in Astoria.

djvandrake: Thanks! It will probably be a while before Astoria is presentable, but when it is, I won't hesitate to share pictures of it.

Glowbal: Thank you! I've been considering changing my water mod to one of Pegasus's excleent mods, but if you like the way my water looks now, I won't bother.





Once the new section of Hunters Island was finished, it made the rest of the local waterfront look less than great. I knew that for a city as great as the birthplace of Lower Columbia, that wouldn't do, so while my department was busy building the new rail spur extension, I put together a plan for beautifying the whole stretch of Elochoman Slough, the part of the Columbia River separating Hunters Island from the rest of Nyhaven.



The most logical thing to do first was to continue the coastline facing the river's main channel along a path extending straight from the reclaimed land's end. That meant adding some more land to the island. As summer turned to fall in 2398, work started on reclaiming still more land from the river.



Gradually, a new coastline began to take shape along the waterfront. By December, the last boatload of earth had been dumped onto the new land.



After extending the city streets onto the new land, developers wasted no time in building on it. I'm sure the residents of those new buildings were grateful to have a nice, sculpted waterfront to look across and use as a park.



The next phase of the project called for bilding seawalls around South Point, home to the observation tower I led the way in building back in the 2370s. First, we had to widen the point a little bit to make room for the new embankments.



I have to say, when the new walls were finished, they made the whole area look better. From what I heard, I wasn't the only one to think so - property values near the point rose, making the locals all the more happy to live there.



Now it was time for the main part of the project. In June 2399, workers got started on straightening the sides of Elochoman Slough, in preparation for the eventual wall construction.



It didn't take long before the upper part of the slough was all walled in.



In just a couple of months, crews had moved their operations north, to the part of the slough that enclosed downtown Nyhaven. First off, they worked on the downtown side of the slough.



As the century drew to a close, they switched over to the mainland shore. All the while, the views from the nearby office towers got better and better.








By New Year's Eve, the work was done. And what a sight Elochoman Slough had become! It was truly spectacular.



Overall, the project didn't look great from higher up, but at ground-level, it was great to finally have a nice waterfront.

[KoV Liberty]

Looks really good! It really brings an improvement to Nyhaven.