Dockside (#1463)

(an instance of Generic Room with Seats made by Trismegistos)

     The waterfront makes an angle here, as the mighty river to the west is joined by a salty channel to the south. Inland, the buildings have fared badly, remaining only as gutted shells, fields of rubble and garbage, an occasional standing wall. On one of these walls you can make out a billboard.
     Broadway continues north, while a short narrow sidestreet leads east to a more seedy area of the ruin...
     A concrete pier juts out into the wide mouth of the channel here. A slick of oil, dead fish and flotsam laps against the shore and pier.
     Through the rain, there is a tall chainlink fence visible on the other bank of the channel.
     

You are sitting on the dock of the river, wastin' time.

You notice some details:
      Rotting ropes and rusty cleats are the only trace of the pier's former activity. Its surface looks solid enough, and near the end you see a propeller-like symbol with three crooked arms, stenciled in day-glo red. There is a mooring place next to the symbol, a few steps going down to the waterline.
      Though some of its strips are coming off, the billboard is still legible. It was an advertisement for TRI-CITIES INDUSTRIAL PARK, and bears an illustration of green lawns surrounding immaculate factories and office buildings. Someone has defaced it with day-glo red spray paint so that it now reads TRISKELION POST-INDUSTRIAL PARK.

EXITS:
      [ river ] Middle of South Channel. You hold your nose and dive into the oily waters, then swim out to ....
      [ north ] South Broadway. You walk north on Broadway.
      A short narrow sidstreet leads east to a more seedy area of the ruin. [ east ] Drag-Strip Speedway. As you being to travel east down the narrow sidestreet, you begin to hear voices.

This place has a certain ambiance...
     Off to the south, you think you see a flickering flame.
     A scrawny wharf rat wrestles with a dubious scrap of fish.
     You have a strange impulse to sit down and whistle.
     Somewhere, you hear a cat meow.
     A cat the size of a dog chases a rat the size of a cat.
     The loose strips of paper up on the billboard flap in the breeze.