Port Gellhorn Downtown

The faded historic downtown of the old Port Gellhorn municipality, absorbed by Vice City decades ago but still clinging to a stubborn civic identity.

Before Vice City sprawled far enough to absorb it, Port Gellhorn was its own modest municipality, built on the backs of port labor and small-boat commerce. The downtown core of that original town still exists, a few blocks of two-story brick buildings with wrought-iron balconies and storefronts whose signage has been layered with so many painted-over names that the current ones look like archaeological finds. The old municipal building is now a community center, still presiding over a town square where a farmers market draws a loyal Saturday crowd. The regulars at the two-block dive bar strip are the kind of old-timers who'll explain to anyone who'll listen that Port Gellhorn isn't really Vice City, despite what the city maps say. It's a neighborhood with character, a complicated relationship with the cranes looming three blocks away, and a surprisingly active arts scene in its converted upper-floor spaces.