Moving to Devens, MA....please help!!! (Boston, Worcester: best towns, apartment complex, to rent)

[trojpaul]

So I just got a job at the federal medical center in devens and I'm looking for a quite safe place to move to. I"m coming from los angeles, so this is going to be quite a move. I'm looking for a commute no longer than 30 minutes and the most important thing to me is that the area is safe. I"m looking to rent, so purchasing a house is not important. Plus can anyone provide insight into what the neighboring areas are like in terms of activites, supermarkets, etc. I've lived in a big city all my life and this will be a big move, so any help will be greatly appreciated.

[brightdoglover]

There are no particularly unsafe areas within 30 miles of Devens,with the exception of the city of Fitchburg. But you aren't near any "big city" stuff. I know because I live about five miles east of Devens after 18 years in Cambridge, and found it just plain odd to be out in the sticks. Safety really won't be an issue, but shopping might be, and social life if you are coming alone. Leominster (next to Fitchburg) has outlet malls and lots of shopping, and is a pleasant town, better away from the border with Fitchburg.
Anywhere you might live further east on Route 2 would give you a reverse commute (little traffic) and closer to the big city. A town like Concord might be more of a town with people to meet than say, an apartment complex in Ayer, and you'd be much closer to Cambridge/Boston. The further west you go, the more you're getting into "central Mass." and away from big city feel and thoughts.
I have about a 45-minute drive to Cambridge (my chosen city) for a good bookstore, art films, odd little restaurants, the universities for lectures and so on. I'm assuming you might be on the young side of things? I'm not, but still choose Cambridge for "city life." Boston is right on the other side of the river from Cambridge, two train stops on the Red line, if you're more inclined to Boston's many charms. I can't think of anywhere you'd be particularly unsafe, except maybe walking on the Boston Common at night. It's like Disneyland here for crime- high crime is really only in a couple of neighborhoods, and you'd have no reason to be there.
Good luck- feel free to direct mail me if you'd like. I applied to the federal medical center when it was built, and the maximum age to apply was 39, and I was 42. They were having trouble finding many local people under 39 in the area, because younger people don't tend to live out these ways.

[Eric H.]

I worked in the Devens area for many years, so I know a bit about the region. Without a doubt, one of the best towns within 30 minutes of Devens is Maynard. Blessed with a downtown stuck in time but with an eye for for future, Maynard has an intown movie theater, and a good variety of restaurants including American, seafood, Indian, Korean Thai, Italian, a brick oven pizza place and old school Chinese restaurant. The Sit n' Bull Pub has great ribs and top-notch blues entertainment. Babico's gives you the Homer Simpson option with a great variety of donuts and comfort foods. The Maynard Outdoor Store serves as the unofficial anchor of the downtown, a wonderful old-fashioned store where generations of families have gone for great customer service and quality name brand clothing. In addition to the Outdoor Store, there's a nice variety of shops that lend a true hometown feel.

Maynard is a very safe town, rather compact (only 5.24 square miles), and has a nice community feel. It was the home of Digital Corporation, and now is the home of Monster.com. Maynard is in no way refined -- full of modest ranches and colonials, and, at times, a rough-around-the edges look. Overall, however, this is not your cookie-cutter type community and has things to do that go way beyond watching them change the tires at the gas station on a Friday night.

What's more, you are only 26 miles northwest of Boston. So, you can have the best of both worlds -- a town commutable to Devens and within striking distance of one of America's greatest cities. You are also 24 miles to not one of America's greatest cities, Worcester, Mass., but in the future Worcester could be a great city option. Plans will hopefully materialize for the $563 million renovation to potentially truly revitalize this city, which already has the superb Worcester Art Museum, the Ecotarium for science exploration, nine universities and colleges, the DCU Center for entertainment (Wow, Elmo's Green Thumb is coming to the DCU on Sept. 25!), and about 2,000 ancient diners in business (yes, that's a stretch).

You are also minutes to historic Lexington and Concord, both nice towns with plenty of history, great preservation, and some particularly scenic, rural areas of Concord (including the famous Walden Pond).

Lastly, Maynard is home to Erikson's, a classic ice cream stand that has been in business since 1937. The ginger ice cream is phenomenal, as well as the wintergreen chip!

Hope this helps. Maynard might not be perfect, but it's a real community and a real good one, at that, combining things to do in town with close proximity to Devens and Boston.

[Dwatted Wabbit]

Ft. Devens used to be an active post. As such, there are some beautiful colonials built during the depression, i.e. like fortresses. There are also some smaller ranches, and all were being sold off when we arrived in the area in 2002. If I had the bucks, those colonials were beautiful and probably worth the price.

I don't know about surrounding areas, see above^^ for details.
We lived in NH.
Mass. had too many big brother laws for us to stomach.

[ogre]

A lot of this will depend on your housing budget, and the kind of place you'd like to live--rural, a little more suburban, or a touch of urban character. Generally, the area around Devens is rural or exurban. Eric H's suggestion of Maynard is good if you'd like a little center of urban character in the middle of the rural countryside. As Eric said, Maynard is a little rough around the edges. It's an old blue-collar town that has seen some influx of professionals, which makes for a mix of socio-economic levels that seems to enhance the town's friendly, genuinely small-town character. There is nothing fancy about Maynard. It's not a place to live if you want a big yard or real country acreage, but it's a nice friendly genuine small town, with a fairly good variety of local businesses for a town in a generally rural area. If you want to be close to such a population center but still have some open country immediately around you, then you might look into some towns adjacent to, or near, Maynard, such as Stow, Concord, and Lincoln, if your housing budget is generous, or possibly Acton (affluent but not as pricey as the other towns I've just listed), Westford, or Littleton. In that local area, in addition to the traditional small businesses in Maynard, another big shopping area is route 2A in Acton, which is lined with strip mall after strip mall.

Depending on what you are looking for, one town you might want to check out closely is Littleton. Littleton is more a mix of suburban and rural than the somewhat urban character of Maynard, but it is another town with its own sense of community despite having its share of commuters. Despite being a nice little town, Littleton continues to have reasonable housing prices by Boston-area standards, and is located along a commuter rail line, making access to city activities convenient, if that interests you.

Like Fitchburg, Lowell is another small city which may be within roughly half an hour of Devens which you might want to avoid if you're looking for a quiet and safe place. It's not that Lowell is a really bad city, just that it may have its bad areas, and is not an especially nice city overall.

Just south of Lowell is Chelmsford. I'm not personally familiar with Chelmsford, but I have heard that it is very much a typical example of suburban sprawl, if that kind of area is of interest.

If a more rural area is closer to your tastes, most of the small towns within easy reach of Devens are really nice, clean, safe places. Some towns with more rural character that you might check out are Groton, Pepperell, Harvard, Boxborough, and Lancaster.

You're not going to find big-city life right on your doorstep in the vicinity of Devens, but actually you do have a variety of other kinds of communities to choose from, so it's good that you can have plenty of options right in the local area. Best of luck with your move.

[brightdoglover]

I'd say Maynard's "rough edges" are most apparent because on the roads into the center of town, there are all sorts of auto parts kind of places, car garages, and they're right up to the road.
Sadly, I think the Sit n' Bull closed. One of the great sorta-dives.