How often do you go to downtown Sacramento? (Fair Oaks, Ramona: apartments, city hall)

[Tiger Beer]

How often do you go to downtown Sacramento?

Is there a reason to? Is it pleasant to walk around on the weekends? Is the city's downtown built interesting enough to inspire it?

[NewToCA]

Downtown, I'd say we go a couple of times a month, midtown at least once a week.

[wburg]

Pretty much daily. I work downtown, but I also go to events downtown pretty regularly. I live in midtown, and I also go to many of Sacramento's other central city neighborhoods. Downtown and midtown are kind of the meat in the central city sandwich--they get all the attention, but there are other neighborhoods there too that don't get much attention.

This Saturday is the kickoff of a new event called "Design Downtown," intended as a downtown Sacramento complement to Midtown's "Second Saturday" event (although Second Saturday actually started downtown and migrated to Midtown and Del Paso.) It is brand new, but the last few times Sacramento held a party on K Street (New Year's Eve 2008, Thursday Night Market) they were incredibly popular events.

SN&R > THIRD SATURDAY DESIGN DOWNTOWN

Weekends are not downtown Sacramento's strong suit. About 100,000 people commute into downtown Sacramento to work Monday through Friday (not counting furlough Fridays) but only about 30,000 people live in the central city. About 3000 live in downtown proper, including about 1000 in the jail. This means that downtown looks pretty busy during the workweek but kind of empties at night and on weekends. Lots of people come to the central city on weekend evenings, but nowhere near 100,000. This means that downtown Sacramento, especially during the day, can feel like a ghost town sometimes. The massive 9-5 office boost means that many businesses don't even bother staying open past 5 PM, or on weekends at all. This, plus the fact that a lot of downtown property owners (including the city of Sacramento) have left buildings vacant and decaying for decades in the hope that they can cash out and put a skyscraper there someday, gives some parts of downtown Sacramento an empty feel, especially on Sunday. However, this can make the place a very nice spot for things like bike riding. And any time there is a festival, suddenly those empty streets get clogged. Sacramento has a stodgy reputation, but it is utter nonsense. Sacramentans LOVE an excuse to party.

The other exception is Old Sacramento. Locals tend to look down their nose at Old Sac, and it does have kind of a cheesy feel, but it is a very popular tourist destination--adding up to millions of visitors a year. Business ebbs and flows, but even in these rough economic times and blistering summer heat, Old Sacramento tends to hum on the weekends, both during the day (with families and kids) and at night (with nightclub goers and diners.)

Downtown Sacramento's built environment is kind of variable. We have some great old buildings, but they tend to be out of context because their neighbors were knocked down. Because of decades of assorted redevelopment projects, much of our historic architecture was plowed under and replaced by relatively stodgy state buildings. As mentioned above, some potential architectural beauties have been allowed to fall into disrepair because the owner purchased the property just to knock down what was there and build something else, but doesn't really have the means to do so. If you like old buildings, here is a handful of what I consider the historic architecture high points of downtown:

H Street: Southern Pacific passenger depot, REA building, PG&E substation, youth hostel, Sterling Hotel, Historic Governor's Mansion
I Street: Post office/federal building, City Hall, Jim-Denny's
J Street: Fruit Building, The Ramona, Ruhstaller Building, Cal-West Building (Citizen Hotel), Elks Building, Public Market (Julia Morgan designed, now part of the Sheraton), Memorial Auditorium
K Street: Oschner Building, Kress Building, Crest Theatre, Hotel Regis, Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, Weinstock's Building
L Street: Marshall Hotel, Berry Hotel, Capitol Park Hotel, Senator Hotel, Firestone Building
Capitol: Tower Bridge, Library & Courts Building, State Capitol
N Street: Stanford Mansion, the row of Streamline Moderne state buildings and apartments from about 9th to 16th

[Shope]

I'm trying to buy a house downtown right now. I am eyeing one on E street currently.

[Damnitjanet]

I avoid it as much as possible. There are a lot of bums and panhandlers and not much to do there. Midtown has some restaurants and cafes, but parking is a pain in the butt.

[CityGirl72]

If I didn't have kids - I'd LIVE in Midtown (or maybe Downtown)

But with kids I'm extremely busy and hardly get a chance to do all the Midtown things I used to do. We moved to Fair Oaks. Good thing...

Yet, I did take my son to the IMAX on Saturday

[Apples&Oranges]

I love to go to concerts at the downtown convention center theater. Wonderful acoustics. I also love the nearby Crocker Art Museum, the beautiful Stanford House, and Old Town. Lots of history.

[wburg]

The Sacramento History Museum (right next to the Railroad Museum) just did an extensive remodel of their ground floor and installed a lot of new exhibits, including some cool stuff like touch-screen displays; a lot of folks here in town don't even know that we have a Sacramento History Museum.

[ecvMatt]

When I lived there, I went to concert in the park almost every Friday in the summer, and I went to old town at least once a month, if for no other reason than to stroll along the waterfront.

[Shope]

Originally Posted by Damnitjanet

I avoid it as much as possible. There are a lot of bums and panhandlers and not much to do there. Midtown has some restaurants and cafes, but parking is a pain in the butt.

Yeah, every corner is infested with bums. And OMG, so boring, theres nothing to do at all.