Editing Dark Champions: New Venice (section)

=About New Venice=
Pronounced Ven-ICE
Population: 488,230 
Location: Camden CountySouth West corner of Georga.

At its worse, it is a mix of both the decaying Old South nobility and modern decadence, often clashing. At it best, it is a dynamic vibrant city full of old world charm, in the midst of an economic boom.  People of every socal strata  have flocked there as the rest of the country's economy nosedives.  It is slowly edging out Atlanta's title of as was seen in the ugly competition beteen Atlanta and New Venice for the 1996 Olympics.  With the advent of modern container shipping, New Venice port's traffic ehas increased tenfold in teh last five years. Cargo once shipped inland by train is instead of handled by longshoremen, so there's a big economic shift in a traditional working-class area.  Unfortunately it is estimated that 35% of the city's traffic is due to illegal activity.  Note that some of the older and hight society citizens call New Venice "Greater Venice" since it is much larger, more spread, and just culturally developed as its namesake.


New Venice is the second largest city in Georgia. It really came into being in the 1880's where it became the first stop and eventual home of many Italian stonemasons who came over from the old country to work in the US during the post Civil War Reconstruction.

You can have old genteel southern feel of Olde Towne, the once grand "Italian District," the bustle of the skyscrapers of downtown, and the seedy docks of Portside.
And of course the forest of hi-rise Condo Towers in the posh suburb of Cuore Beach.
What used to be the cuban nieghborhood Yabor City recently has an huge influx of Russians. 

All these are riddled by its famous canals.
There is even a toungue-in-cheek urban legend about "Vinnie," a monster who supposedly inhabits the canals and is the city's unoffical mascot. Depending on who tells the tale, Vinnie may be a plesiosaur, a giant thirty foot alligator, or a mutated man-eating manatee.The manatee rumors are likely just an outgrowth of the New Venice Manatees AA baseball team - they're the ones that first started using Vinnie as their mascot.

Don't forget that wedged between Portside to the south, and the agricultural chemical industrial plants and the train station in the north, is Free Town, the district still primarily inhabited by african american families, and settled during the Reconstruction period by freed slaves. Oddly, this is another area, in addition to Olde Towne, where the homeowners associations are the most adamant about maintaining the "old southern charm" of their buildings, and force property owners to follow strict rules in any remodeling or refurbishment of the old homes and businesses there.


==Culture==
New Venice's renaissance festival is perhaps the largest in the US
And the Yellow Fever Jazz Fest, held in mid-August, has attracted jazz headliner from aroudn the world, although only in its 4th year .

==Landmarks==
The main waterway is the Grand Canal.
While New Venice is affluent, whle there are great hights there are great depths.  Nationwide, Skidmore Row is perhaps the worse of these nighborhoods.  Indeed "Skid Row" has become slang for any decripid neighborhood.  The graffi riddled stsatue of Gen. Skidmore 

Located just off the Grand Canal on Blakely Plaza, is the New Venice Museum Of Modern Art (NV-MOMA) A hideous monstrotrocity that everyone hates. It incorporates all of the worst features of modern art. It looks like it was designed by a lunatic, because it was. Some visitors even complain of nightmares. Its designer Johnson Debuque, went insane and has been a resident of the hopeless case wing of the St. Regis Asylum for the last 45 years. The truth behind it is an ugly story... 

Far more popular is the St. Blaise Cathedral. Built as a labor of love buy the orginal Italian stonemasons who settled in New Venice, it put many old world churches to shame. Its crowning touch is an exact copy of the bell tower from St Mark's Basilca in old Venice. (Interesting piece of trivia. When the orginal San Marco bell tower collapsed in old Venice, 1902 they used the New Venice tower as a reference to rebuilt the orginal from scratch. So technically, the belltower in Plaza San Marco, Venice, Italy is a copy of the one here in New Venice! True story.)

To the south is the Blake National Forest. Called a "national treasure" by enviromental groups, it is seen an eyesore by locals. It is more of swamp than a forest. Its nickname is "Blake's Hell" from a Local legend is that back in 1835 a local farmer named Obiadah Blake went hunting in the woods in this area. He went into the swamps hunting for a Panther that was killing his livestock. The story end with him being lost in the forest for weeks until he finally came to a clearing near Freetown. There he stated "My name is Obiadah Blake, and I just came from Hell!" He then died.