opinions on the castro / mission / noe valley / duboce park area AND alamo square (Berkeley: apartments)

[rascal-c]

hey everyone,

so I've posted before, but I wanted to get some more specific opinions on a certain part of SF. my boyfriend and I are gearing up for a move from westside LA to SF next year. we're late 20s and are city people who have lived in NYC, boston, and LA.

last time I posted about neighborhoods, mayorhaggar posted this: "My favorite part of the city is the area between Noe Valley, the Castro, the Mission and Duboce Park. Basically bounded by Castro on the west, Valencia on the east, Market on the North, and maybe 19th on the south."

I visited SF a few weeks later and poked around that area, and I did really like it. I liked the nightlife around Valencia and some of the stuff further over to Mission, though as you got further east things definitely got more shady, as everyone has said.

My question is this - where would you look to live in this rather large swath mentioned above? Is living near Valencia and Guerrero safe, or not really? Should I live further west? And where would be the best/safest/close to public transport place to live if I may be commuting home from class in Berkeley and/or at class on Market and 3rd around 10-11PM? it seems like Church could be a good option because of the train, but I also see a good amount of assaults/robberies happening around the park (at like 9PM... wtf?)

also, one quick alamo square question. I went there and it seemed like a nice area to live (I have friends around hayes/pierce and they LOVE) but I wandered around for quite a while and it seemed ALL residential. where are the happening spots/streets in that area? does Divisadero have a lot going on?

thanks!

[mayorhaggar]

It really is my favorite part of the city. Sunny, walkable, quiet when you get off the main streets, fairly safe, and lots of shops and restaurants many of which are modestly priced, and you're centrally located near a lot of other nice areas and downtown isn't very far away.

Being around 16th street would make getting to BART a lot easier, so maybe around 16th would be good. 16th and Mission (where the BART station is) should really be avoided at night but if you get off the train and walk quickly west you should be fine but you never know. If you lived in Noe Valley or further south near 24th you could use the 24th street station which is a bit less shady but not by a lot.

Valencia is ok but it is noisy on some blocks and it's close to Mission St which is just really grubby and shady. Guerrero and Dolores are quieter and more residential, Church has more restaurants on it plus the J-Church streetcar which is really noisy if you live right on Church. Noe and Sanchez are nice and quiet too. For the numbered streets, 18th is the main one that has stuff going on between Valencia and Castro. 16th has a lot of stuff too but it kinda peters out around Guerrero. Duboce Park is nice but it's small. One cool area that doesn't feel like the rest of the city is around Noe and Duboce, if you walk south of there the buildings are all kind of weird and there are all these big trees that makes the area really shady, and there are park benches at the corner where people sit and chat and little shops kind of hidden in the corners of buildings. It doesn't feel like the rest of the area where you wouldn't see so many shade trees or many benches.

Basically go with what you can get, apartments in SF are always in demand so it can be hard to land an apartment if you can, especially in this area. If you can though I would stay west of Valencia and avoid Church to avoid noise. To be near BART I really think around 16th or 24th would be best to avoid a long walk. Something like 16th and Dolores would be really ideal.

If you're taking classes in Berkeley then there's always the East Bay though...

[mayorhaggar]

As for Alamo Square, I'm not as familiar with the area but I believe Divisadero generally has a lot going on. Also Lower Pacific Heights has a lot of restaurants on Fillmore if you go a few blocks north of the Japantown Mall. It's quite a bit further from BART though, you'd probably want to get off BART at Powell or Montgomery then take the 38 Geary which takes I think around 15 or 20 minutes to get to around Fillmore.

[rascal-c]

thanks! I'm not really interested in living in the East Bay at this point. I do find the Mission BART stations to be kind of shady at night, but I'm sure there is a bus or Muni alternative, right?

I also will be commuting late at night from Mission and 3rd area, so that is a consideration as well.

[mayorhaggar]

Well from Berkeley the most convenient thing would be to stay on BART and get off at 16th. The only alternative would be getting off at one of the downtown stations like Montgomery and taking a bus or the J-Church light rail line to the Mission, but that would be sort of silly because it would add a lot to your transit time in between waiting for the bus and taking it, whereas it's probably about 3-5 minutes between Montgomery and 16th on BART. Also downtown can be pretty desolate at night anyway.

If you are taking classes downtown then you can also take BART which would be the fastest way to 16th street, or you can take the Muni J which is slower and runs much less frequently especially at night, plus it only goes down Church street so if you're closer to Mission and Valencia it's better to take BART.

Basically if you just get used to the 16th street station you should be ok, once you move past the Wells Fargo and get towards Valencia there are a lot less weirdos. If you've lived in NYC you could probably deal with it. Also it's better than it used to be like 5 years ago, seems like the area around 16th and Mission doesn't have as many weird people loitering around. Used to be tons of obvious drug dealers standing all up and down Mission between 16th and 18th, you don't really see that anymore.