Town Square

"When Atlantic Express was constructin' their luxury passenger line, this place was hollowed out beneath as flophouses for the railway crew. Nobody was s'posed ta reside down here long-term…"

- Augustus Sinclair

Town Square, also known as Downtown, is a large public space in the Pauper's Drop district of Rapture. This area is home to many important businesses and buildings in the city's poorest neighborhood.

History
While building the Atlantic Express rail line, the construction crew hollowed out the space in Maintenance Junction 17 as a living space for themselves and their families. Few of them could have forseen that this would become their permanent residence. However, when the train system stopped expanding, specialized laborers found themselves out of work with nowhere else to go. Others where employed but ended up down in the Drop after Rapture's competitive market increased the divide between the rich and the poor.

Life in Pauper's Drop was hard for every inhabitant of the locale. The maintenance junction's large, hollow spaces allowed for buildings to be erected, but the area was simply not built to be permanent and was never up to the standards of the residential districts. Besides the leaks, the cold, and the general unpleasantness of the slum, one of the Atlantic Express' rail lines broke and a train car came crashing down into the middle of the area's central plaza where it would remain.

Still, the life blood of Rapture is commerce and, with a large group of prospective customers all in one area, various entrepenuers saw potential business endeavors, even in this sorry site. Various people from corporate magnate Frank Fontaine to down-on-his-luck detective Rock Flanagan operated businesses out of the Town Square.

BioShock 2
Subject Delta finds himself stranded in Pauper's Drop after Sofia Lamb institutes a city-wide lockdown. He seeks out Grace Holloway at the Sinclair Deluxe, but finds his path blocked by a Brute Splicer. Augustus Sinclair sends him in the direction of Town Square to look for a Research Camera.

King Pawn
The local pawnbroker administered loans to citizens in need of a quick buck. This included Rock Flanagan who was forced to hock his camera and never got it back. When Delta arrives, the place is locked up tight. Fortunately, there's a catwalk connecting the adjacent building to the pawnshop's roof.

Fontaine Clinics
Like many of Frank Fontaine's businesses, the clinic was a front for his ulterior motives. While he collected money by having his staff like Drs. Shyera and Tjan administer to the health of the Drop's residents, he received a much more valuable product: recycled ADAM. The center would host blood drives and the valuable substance would be collected from the patentients' blood.

Delta finds this building is also locked up, but an audio diary directs him to the Fishbowl Diner where he finds the code. Once inside, not only does he gain access to the useful supplies in the edifice, he gains access to the other buildings in the area.

Roof Level
Atop the Clinic's roof is the area's water tower and a Little Sister Vent. When Delta gets there, members of the Rapture Family are engaged in a prayer ritual around the enshrined vent. There's an ADAM corpse by the water tower, being looked over by a Security Camera.

The Hamilton
The Hamilton was one of the taller buildings in Pauper's Drop. It rented out office space and other rooms to enterprising individuals looking to start a small business. Private detective Rock Flanagan ran Flanagan investigations, a profitable firm specializing in finding missing people and spying.

The building is at least three stories, but, like everything else in the downtown area, the entrance is blocked off. Subject Delta is able to enter part of the second floor area where he comes across the likely corpse of Rock Flanagan at the bottom of the stairs. The third floor houses his office and a passage to the roof of the Fontaine Clinics building.

Luxury Rooms
Across from the Hamilton is a building identified only by a neon sign reading "Luxury Rooms." Many Rapturians would head to Siren Alley to get their rocks off, but for those who couldn't or wouldn't head over there, this place would suffice. The hotel charged its patrons hourly rates for the rooms.

Since the lower floors of the building are blocked off, Delta can only enter the rooms by crossing over a makeshift catwalk from King Pawn. The only open room holds a safe.