Algonquin

"Algonquin - Self-proclaimed center of everything. Cultural center of the world, commercial center of the world, financial center of the world. If Algonquin residents could have it their way, the region would also be considered the epicenter of everything in the known universe. A word of warning to the inquisitive traveler: questioning the integrity of Algonquin's self-righteous and artificially-sweetened natives will likely get you shot."

- Description "Expensive, snooty and over."

- GTA IV Website

Algonquin is the largest borough in Liberty City featured in Grand Theft Auto IV, possessing 29 of the metropolitan area's 65 neighborhoods, with an estimated population of 4,331,205.

Overview
Algonquin serves as the core of the Liberty metropolitan area, and contains the two central business districts of the city. The Downtown Algonquin and Midtown Algonquin hold the city's skyscrapers, with some world famous ones. Algonquin is the most densely populated area in Liberty City, and is known to be the center of finance and economy. Recently, it is suggested that Algonquin has surpassed London as the "Financial Capital of the World".

Algonquin is a major commercial, financial, and cultural center of the United States of America and the world, like Manhattan is in real life. Most major radio, television, and telecommunications companies in the United States are based here, as well as many news, magazine, book, and other media publishers. Algonquin has many famous landmarks, sightseer attractions, museums and theater shows. It is also home to the headquarters of the Civilization Committee. Algonquin is the largest central business district in the United States, and is the site of both The Exchange financial district and a Midtown based stock exchange, BAWSAQ. Algonquin is the home to the largest number of corporate headquarters in the nation. It is indisputably the center of Liberty City and the Liberty metropolitan region, holding the seat of city government, and the largest fraction of employment, business, and recreational activities Financially, itself overall is upper class, as the wealthiest borough in the whole city and area in the entire game, still however, with some deprived areas working on gentrification, like real-life Manhattan. The borough is spread across 3 separate islands. 27 of its 29 districts are located on the main Algonquin Isle, whilst the Happiness Island neighborhood is located on the island of the same name and the Colony Island district is positioned on its eponymous island.

The name comes from a Native American tribe that lived in the Great Lakes region of the United States of America, but now live in Quebec, Canada. History states that Algonquin is a Native American word for "place to build condo skyscrapers".

Algonquin is legally inaccessible to the player until the terrorist threat is lifted on the bridges across the Humboldt River during the mission Blow Your Cover for Elizabeta Torres.


 * Downtown Algonquin is rich, has big buildings, powerful companies, and many of the game's nicer and more expensive cars spawn here.


 * Uptown Algonquin is well known for upscale expensive homes along Middle Park and government subsidized housing. Uptown is sort of a catch 22, as there are areas of extreme wealth, as well as extreme poverty. The Northwood area is one of the poorest on the island, and is home to many of the dangerous street gangs that populate the area. Traveling there at night is not recommended.


 * Midtown Algonquin is well known with Star Junction (Time Square), Middle Park (Central Park), and The Rotterdam Tower (Empire State Building).

Avenues
Algonquin is divided into 7 Avenues, which extend from north - south across Algonquin. Almost all of them carry north/south bound traffic.

The Avenues are labelled alphabetically, from East to West. Albany Avenue and Bismarck Avenue are useful for traveling across the Eastern sides of Algonquin, whereas the Columbus Avenue is the busier, primary route through Algonquin's Eastern side. Denver Avenue allows travel through the inner-eastern side of Algonquin whilst Exeter Avenue provides travel through the inner-western side. Frankfort Avenue is the longest avenue in Algonquin, and provides the main primary route of travel through western Algonquin. Traveling through the outer west side is achieved using Galveston Ave. The smaller sub-major avenues, Denver-Exeter and Burlesque (Algonquin's equivalent of Manhattan's Broadway) comprise the Star Junction intersection. Both are the only avenues on the island to carry south-bound traffic only. Every avenue on Algonquin is named for US state capitals, with the exception of Burlesque, Exeter and Galveston. Albany is the capital of New York, Bismarck is the capital of North Dakota, Columbus is the capital of Ohio, Denver is the capital of Colorado and Frankfort is the state capital of Kentucky. Galveston and Exeter are both names for towns and cities in multiple states. Galveston is the name of a city in Texas, and Exeter is the name of towns in California, Maine, Illinois, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nebraska, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.

Streets
The borough is known for its extensive street grid. There are 24 streets going east-west and they are named alphabetically for various minerals and elements, from Amethyst Street in the south to Xenotime Street in the north. Minor streets that are not part of the Algonquin grid system are named differently, for example: Grummer Road. The city is surrounded by Union Drive (West and East) traveling along the Algonquin waterfront.

When taking Algonquin's 25 streets and seven avenues into account, it can be calculated that there are 144 blocks in Algonquin's grid system; this does not include the minor roads that are located in and around the grid.

Subways
All of the subways in Liberty City converge on two lines looping through Algonquin: The A/J Outer Algonquin Line connects over the Algonquin Bridge to Broker, where it becomes the 3/8 Broker Line. The K/C Inner Algonquin Line connects to the B/E Bohan Line north of the Frankfort High/Low Stations. The two lines connect to one another at Easton Station.

In addition, there is also a Skycar over the western portion of the Humboldt River south of the Algonquin Bridge, connecting Algonquin with Colony Island. This is based on the Roosevelt Island Tramway.

Places of Interest in Algonquin
Although you can visit all of these places on foot or at least on the ground, you can get an even better view of it by taking a tour of the city by air using Higgins Helitours located in south east Algonquin.
 * Civic Citadel (The Exchange)
 * Civilization Committee (Albany Avenue and Manganese Street, Lancet)
 * Rotterdam Tower (The Triangle)
 * Star Junction (Denver-Exeter Avenue and Burlesque, Star Junction)
 * Statue of Happiness (Happiness Island)
 * Middle Park (Columbus Ave, Frankfort Avenue, Nickel Street, and Topaz Street, Middle Park)
 * Grand Easton Terminal (Bismarck Avenue and Hematite Street, Easton)
 * Liberty Catholic Church (Suffolk)
 * Rubin Swinger Basketball Courts (Exeter Ave, between Wardite Street and Xenotime Street, Northwood)
 * Zirconium Building (Lancet)
 * Randolf Art Center (Galveston Avenue and Obsidian Street, Middle Park West)
 * Live Central Music Venue (Star Junction)
 * The Libertonian (Middle Park East)
 * GetaLife Building (Easton)
 * Cleethorpes Tower (Trump Tower)
 * Suffolk Church Grave Yard (only cemetery in Algonquin)
 * A statue of Jeremiah James (Uranium Street and Columbus Avenue)

Notable Residents

 * Marnie Allen (formerly)
 * Yusuf Amir
 * Niko Bellic
 * Roman Bellic
 * Ray Boccino (formerly)
 * Marlon Bridges (formerly)
 * Alexandra Chilton
 * Lyle Cleethorpes
 * Bernie Crane
 * Bryce Dawkins
 * Dwayne Forge
 * Frank Garone (formerly)
 * Cherise Glover
 * Alonso Gomez
 * Oscar Gomez
 * John Hunter
 * Chan Jaoming (formerly)
 * Kiki Jenkins
 * Clarence Little (formerly)
 * Luis Fernando Lopez
 * Francis McReary
 * Anthony Prince (formerly)
 * Hossan Ramzy
 * Jayvon Simson (formerly)
 * Anthony Spoleto (formerly)
 * Playboy X (Trey Stewart)
 * Ernesto Asaltacunas (during baseball season)
 * Bruce Spade (part-time)
 * Alfonso Vasquez
 * January Natasha Vasquez
 * Jill Von Crastenburg (formerly)
 * Jeff (formerly)
 * Sara
 * Rocco Pelosi (formerly)
 * Vince Pelosi (formerly)
 * Margot (formerly)

Businesses in Algonquin

 * Grotti Showroom, car dealership in Middle Park East
 * Memory Lanes, bowling alley in The Meat Quarter
 * Modo, midrange clothing store in North Holland
 * Perseus, upmarket clothing stores in Middle Park East and The Exchange
 * RS Haul, couriers
 * Split Sides, comedy club
 * Tw@t, internet cafe
 * Bahama Mamas LC, nightclub
 * Hercules, nightclub
 * Maisonette 9, nightclub
 * Golden Pier Swingers Golf Club, golf club

Neighborhoods

 * Castle Garden City (Battery Park City)
 * Castle Gardens (Battery Park)
 * Chinatown (Chinatown)
 * City Hall (City Hall)
 * Colony Island (Roosevelt Island)
 * East Holland (East Harlem)
 * Easton (East Village)
 * The Exchange (Financial District)
 * Fishmarket North (The Bowery)
 * Fishmarket South (South Street Seaport)
 * Happiness Island (Liberty Island)
 * Hatton Gardens (Tudor City)
 * Lancaster (Yorkville)
 * Lancet (Kips Bay)
 * Little Italy (Little Italy)
 * Lower Easton (Lower East Side)
 * Middle Park (Central Park)
 * Middle Park East (Upper East Side)
 * Middle Park West (Upper West Side)
 * North Holland (Harlem)
 * Northwood (Inwood, Washington Heights)
 * Presidents City (Alphabet City)
 * Purgatory (Hell's Kitchen)
 * Star Junction (Times Square, Theater District)
 * Suffolk (SoHo)
 * The Meat Quarter (Meatpacking District)
 * The Triangle (Midtown, The Flatiron District)
 * Varsity Heights (Morningside Heights)
 * Westminster (Greenwich Village)

Possible Ownership
The Von Crastenburg Family are said to haved previously owned half of the island of Algonquin (as stated in a segment of I'm Rich). Jill Von Crastenburg is an Algonquin party girl and an heiress to the dynasty's vast fortune.

Trivia

 * In the game's television show History of Liberty City it is said that the Native American name 'Algonquin' meant 'Place to build many skyscrapers'.
 * The Algonquin name is derived from the Algonquin tribe, similar to the origins of Manhattan's name.
 * After the island is unlocked, an RPG launcher can be obtained relatively early in the game. It can be found at the top of a large grassy rock just off the shore of Northwood. Just as all other hidden packages in the game, it will respawn every few hours, allowing Niko to obtain full RPG ammo quite early in the game. This can make some of the upcoming missions easier.
 * It is possible to easily cross into Algonquin before legally unlocking it. This can be done by engaging the police at the Algonquin Bridge checkpoint in Broker, and stealing a police car. Then, simply drive to the other side and evade the police. The pedestrian walkways (such as the one across the Broker Bridge which remains open from the start of the game) and subway tracks can also be used. If the player uses a cheat to add an in-game helicopter and use it, they can easily fly over to Algonquin. The player will attain a six-star wanted level as soon as they reach Algonquin, regardless of the method.
 * If you enter Algonquin before it is unlocked via the Broker Bridge pedestrian overpass, it's possible to exit the bridge at the other end, walk down the staircase, and steal a vehicle from a nearby parking lot, allowing some exploration of the island before the police kill Niko.
 * In GTA V, there is a road located in Sandy Shores called Algonquin Boulevard.

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