Richmond Virginia: A Real Life v In-Game Comparison (planning and prep stages)

Joe_Momma

So as I'm sure I've mentioned somewhere on here at some point, I live about 20 minutes south of Richmond, the setting of season 3. This gives me a nice opportunity I've wanted to act on for... well, ever since From The Gallows released I suppose. But I'm a proper suburbs loser and the city weirds me out somewhat. But a recent Record Store Day escapade and replaying season 3 with a eye for landmarks has emboldened me to actually get around to doing this. Although I did already find the best spot in the city.

(Some more fun stuff with that over in the Details Thread. Photo taken by my friend over at Rhi-Created Images. Hit her up for me.)

So that's the fun bit, now businessy side. I'm currently still in the planning stages, namely getting screenshots of any good landmarks from in-game for comparison and trying to find matches through Google Maps. I'm going public with this now so I can call on y'all for help. If anyone has something they want me to try and find or helpful screencaps, post em. If anyone is able to have some good luck finding real world equivalent through Google Maps, let me know.

So the town square in-game of New Richmond has several distinct locations that should make this really easy. Going clockwise there's a tall stone church, apartments, some sort of court house(?), a medical center, and a post office. In the center there's a subway entrance, playground and a statue. Nearby there's a highway overpass, the Poe Museum and possibly some more stuff I haven't gotten to yet (I'm only a bit of a ways into episode 4 ATM, still need screencaps from the rest of the season).
And now we narrow it down. That's easy enough to start with as the map David gives you in episode 3 has the New Richmond territory pretty clearly circled.

It's largely the northern downtown area, a good jumping off point.
The Poe Museum that acts as David's house is in that area and a great reference as well.

It aligns with the map and has a really clear real-world equivalent. But it's downhill from here.
The Post Office being used as an armory has a clear address printed on it, piece of cake.

Except no post office with that address exists. In fact I couldn't even find a post office that looks like that.
Gong by concept art we get a clear name on the medical center.

Except no medical center with that name actually exists. And none of the Hospitals in the area look like that.
There's what looks to be a subway entrance in the square, so presumable a subway station below. This aligns with how you have to climb out of the train tunnel at the end of episode 2 rather than it being at ground level.

Except Richmond does not have a subway system. This one gets me the most because there's also the train tunnel you take into Richmond, which is presumably the Bellwood SD that crosses the James River and connects to the Main Street Station. But in-game it starts above ground then you exit it below ground on the other side. You can't switch to below sea-level while going over water. Also there is no sub-terrain train systems. It's all above ground.
There's also a rather official looking building that I don't believe ever is used for anything and doesn't have any distinguishing features.

The Downtown area and Poe Museum are right near Capital Hill where there's a bunch of law offices and courts. Probably along those lines?
The Church is big part but we rarely get to see any proper exterior shots. In fact I had to cheat a little and screenshot a YouTube video for one right at the end of episode 5 cause I'm too lazy to wait until I actually play that far again.

Note the columns and triangle entrance roof. I suspect this is meant to be The Cathedral Of The Sacred Heart off of Monroe Park.

Although it's rather far northeast, nowhere near a highway overpass and the 360 view from the inside shows a quite different layout with a lack of stain glass windows. But the exterior's appearance and presence of belltowers helps.

This also helps place the apartments, partly seen above.

At a guess this is Johnson Hall just down the road. It's student housing, so basically apartments (probably was public in 2003 given VCU's constant growth). It's (mostly) the right style with an overhang over the entrance. Well, it's the best I've got.
Also worth noting there is a statue in Monroe park, but it is not of our lady friend.

Given that's it's actually of a Confederate General... yeah, that might've been intentional. The South is weird.

So, as you can see this is largely shots in the dark and guess-work. It seems TellTale just took some vague elements that are common in urban areas like subways and post offices and just threw them together haphazardly without any real-world relevance beyond the Poe Museum. Still, I'd like to head out there soon and see what I can see, get actual pictures and video rather than just using Google Maps. Plus you guys might be able to help here. If you have any good screenshots of areas/buildings or are able to find anything through Google Maps or buried under the Details thread or Reddit (I checked and didn't find much beyond the Poe Museum being confirmed). So here's an image dump, let's see what we can do.

MintBlue92

The subway entrance, as well as the bus stop sign, is based on NYC. The specific location illustrated is Brooklyn, even though the game takes place in Virginia. Brooklyn was also the name, that was on the red hoodie wore by Clementine during season 1.

Here is a pic from anf and irl.

here is a pic of a subway entrance