Maple Shade Brooklyn Neighborhood

The Brooklyn neighborhood is a largely residential area, squeezed between Powell Blvd to its north, the river to its west, and a bevy of train tracks where cargo trains load and unload day and night to its east (though there's a little overflow of the neighborhood just beyond that).

By and large, the houses here are old pre-WWII construction, run down and rough, as nobody who lives here has the money to do things like upkeep. Portland has just started focusing on renewing this neighborhood, though, and a number of new buildings and refurbishment projects have gone up on both sides of SE Milwaukie Ave, creating a strip of retail spots that are both places for locals to spend money and places to find employment.

It's a neighborhood of run-down houses and weed-choked yards, full of drunks, addicts, and the very poor.

General Modifiers

The following general modifiers apply.

• Chases through the area receive a -2 to all dice pools. The spaces are littered with junk, overgrown grasses and blackberry vines, and other tripping hazards.
• Stealth checks receive a +2 bonus, as there are blown-out streetlights, long shadows, and plenty of places to hide in this neighborhood.
• Hearing-based Perception checks generally receive a -1 penalty, thanks to the almost incessant noise from the Brooklyn Train Depot. A failed check can generally be blamed on that noise.

Locations

• Brooklyn Train Depot: A massive confluence of shipping train tracks, the BTD is where a great deal of the various cargo goods that arrive in Portland by land come from. The Depot is also one of the largest employers of Brooklyn neighborhood residents, although the majority of its workers live elsewhere. The loud chugging and clanging of trains being joined is a constant in the neighborhood.
  • The Perception penalty from the noise increases to -2.
• Aladdin Theater: This seedy establishment boasts a single theater space. In its heyday, it hosted fine theatrical productions, eventually cashing in on the craze for film. In the time since, however, it has become a theater showing only "blue films" – pornography. Indeed, the Aladdin has played the 1974 film Deep Throat since its release two years ago. Though its normal seedy clientele have not gone away, the Aladdin is experiencing something of a resurgence as young, hip trendsetters have latched onto the "porn culture" of today's zeitgeist. During the weekends, crowds of well-dressed partiers show up to start their evening with a showing of the film, before hitting the bars around the Aladdin, and then on to nightclubs to party the rest of the night away.
• Brooklyn City Park: Small and relatively isolated, Brooklyn City Park is poorly maintained. The equipment in the old children's play area is rusted and broken, with swings missing, the floor of the merry-go-round rusted through, and similar severe neglect. As a result, the place has become the haven for homeless and those on chemical benders with nowhere else to go. Drug deals are the order of the day here, mostly by white bikers (members of the Free Souls, Gypsy Jokers, or Mongols clubs, with occasional strife between them).
• Powell Park: Sometimes considered one of the last bastions of the city's fight for ownership of the Brooklyn neighborhood, Powell Park is aggressively patrolled during daylight hours. Various organizations are invited (indeed, incentivized by the city) to hold events here, ranging from sporting events to cultural heritage festivals to children's plays. At night, however, the poverty and crime of the neighborhood reclaim the park, particularly the white supremacist gang known as the European Kindred. More than one local of non-white ethnicity has been lynched by the gang in the past decade in this park.
• Bullseye Glass Company: Considered the vanguard of the attempts to refurbish the neighborhood, the Bullseye Glass Company was founded in 1974 to construct various colored glasses used in industrial and artistic endeavors. It is rapidly coming to be a major employer in the area, challenging the Train Depot for that distinction. The blocks around the company's factor have been quickly purchased and cleaned-up by new employees, who receive assistance from the company in their mortgage applications.
• Johan Poulson House: Built in 1890, the Johan Poulson house has seen a variety of historically interesting owners, including at one point Portland's own "Doughnut King," A.A Hoover. It has changed hands over the years and is currently a boarding house. It is still a point of historical interest in the city, however, and there are rumors of declaring it an historical landmark as part of the neighborhood clean-up efforts.

Numbered Locations

• 1. Gypsy Jokers House: An old run-down house where multiple members of the Gypsy Jokers gang tend to sleep, including their leader Brick.