The Armory District (Providence)....would you move there? (Cranston, North Providence: apartments, rental)

[pearlygirl911]

My husband and i are looking at a nice loft style apartment in the west end, armory district. We are wondering if the neighborhood is safe. We are breaking our lease actually to move out out of the neighborhood that we currently live in do to ongoing crime (thefts, people getting jumped) and noise (pitbulls fighting and barking...people screaming at 5am.) We don't want to get trapped in a similar situation. So we are looking for some opinions... anyone live there? Or considered living there? We walked around the neighborhood (during the day) and it seemed nice enough, and even asked a few residents and they seemed to have good things to say, but as i understand a few blocks in either direction things start to get shifty.

[urbie]

Originally Posted by pearlygirl911

My husband and i are looking at a nice loft style apartment in the west end, armory district. We are wondering if the neighborhood is safe. We are breaking our lease actually to move out out of the neighborhood that we currently live in do to ongoing crime (thefts, people getting jumped) and noise (pitbulls fighting and barking...people screaming at 5am.) We don't want to get trapped in a similar situation. So we are looking for some opinions... anyone live there? Or considered living there? We walked around the neighborhood (during the day) and it seemed nice enough, and even asked a few residents and they seemed to have good things to say, but as i understand a few blocks in either direction things start to get shifty.

What kind of rent is the landlord asking for? At the risk of being labeled an East Side Snob, there are tons of apartments for rent over here, and a lot of them aren't that expensive. With the rental vacancy rate at (probably) an all-time high, this is a great time to be looking for an apartment.

Urb

PS -- I worked at West Side Community Center earlier this year. Not a great neighborhood, to say the least.

[pearlygirl911]

950 everything included....which i'd never find on the East side. I did check out a couple of apartments over there, but for the money we can afford to pay the quality was not great. I've popped into the neighborhood twice and so far what i've come to realize is that the area is very street-by-street. A few streets over is definitely getting into unsavory tastes but the streets with names of trees (Oak, Sycamore..) seem to be diverse and normal people going about their day. I even cruised through at night to see if maybe things were different and i couldn't find a soul or a sound for blocks around.

[Rnrboy]

Just curious, where do you live currently? It may help provide context.

[sevenofsix]

What about checking out cranston it's more peaceful

[pearlygirl911]

we currently live in north providence. it would be a nice neighborhood if it weren't for the neighbors immediately surrounding us. it was deceptively peaceful when we went searching for apartments initially. our reason for choosing providence and not something further south like cranston is because my husband works up 496 practically to worcester and already commutes an hour...otherwise we wouldve lived in Newport my hometown

[pearlygirl911]

Also... bear in mind that we're not afraid of diversity. I find that people on this forum label neighborhoods "shady" just because there are alot of black and latino residents. I'm black, and a working professional. I'm more worried about people that are noisy and argumentative color regardless.

[Hoxsie454]

There are some very nice homes on Chapin, Parade, Messer, etc. But there is a lot of violence, Cranston St., Alhea, Waverly. Knifings, shootings. I wouldn't live within a mile of that if you gave me the house!

[Rnrboy]

Originally Posted by pearlygirl911

we currently live in north providence. it would be a nice neighborhood if it weren't for the neighbors immediately surrounding us. it was deceptively peaceful when we went searching for apartments initially. our reason for choosing providence and not something further south like cranston is because my husband works up 496 practically to worcester and already commutes an hour...otherwise we wouldve lived in Newport my hometown

Honestly, I find it hard to believe that any part of North Providence would be worse than the Armory neighborhood. (Not that I'm saying the Armory neighborhood is horrendous, I'm not the one to ask.)

[pearlygirl911]

Originally Posted by Rnrboy

Honestly, I find it hard to believe that any part of North Providence would be worse than the Armory neighborhood. (Not that I'm saying the Armory neighborhood is horrendous, I'm not the one to ask.)

chyeaa thats what i thought before i moved there. in the past 2 weeks theres been 1 stabbing on my street and 2 robberies. everyone around here thinks theyre a gangster... i find it ironic that the realtors we rented from tediously checked our BCI's only for us to find out later that we're just about the only people on the block without a felony.. i kid you none