Pope's Hill area of Dorchester. Safe? (Boston, Quincy: crime, home, neighborhood)

[clrux]

Hello all,

First time here, so thank you in advance to any and all who can provide information.

My wife and I are interested in the Pope's Hill neighborhood of Dorchester and are curious if anyone has experience with that area and can provide insight.

I work along Commonwealth Ave in Boston and would bike to work, and she would go to her work via the Red Line, most likely via the Field's Corner station.

We've been researching these forums and the area and Pope's Hill looks relatively "calm" compared to other parts of Dot. As some other posters have said, Dot is like a checkerboard in that there are areas of good and bad all mixed together.

So our questions are these:
1. How safe is the Pope's Hill neighborhood?
2. How's the walk to Field's Corner?
3. Is there any advice you'd give to potential buyers?

Again, thank you in advance.

clrux

[goyguy]

Pope's Hill is one of those patches of the Dorchester quilt which has remained a safe and stable neighborhood throughout the years. You'd be close by the shopping and dining/drinking attractions of Adams Corner and Neponset Circle too.
Although Fields Corner is sketchy at best as a rule, you're soon away from it when walking southeastward along Adams St or Neponset Ave, though either route is advisably taken on foot only by day. There's some bus service available on a Fields Corner/Quincy Center line, see MBTA.com > Official Website for Greater Boston's Public Transportation System.
My curiosity lies more with where exactly along Comm Ave the OP is working. Reaching nearly all of that long street west of Mass. Ave would entail biking along a route through parts of town where precautions would need to be taken or - better yet - the area avoided.

[clrux]

Thanks for the reply @goyguy.

I work at Boston University, so definitely west of Mass Ave. I haven't planned the exact route yet, but I suspect the most direct approach would take me through what I expect to be some more unsavory parts. I could always tack on extra distance to be safer if absolutely needed. Going to work it's usually light and there's a bunch of other traffic from commuters, but coming home it'd be dark during the winter. Have you biked this area at all and can suggest a route? And is there a route you would absolutely not take?

When you say that you advise walking along Adams and Neponset only by day, what do you mean? When would "night" begin in this case and what kinds of things would we need to be aware of? Also, we were looking at another place in the Savin Hill area, but didn't like the layout.

How does the Pope's Hill area compare to the area near the JFK stop?

I've been looking at crime maps - maps that plot where crime has occurred over a period of time and what those crimes were - and this area in question looks relatively good. Comparing it to parts of Back Bay it actually looks a little safer. What would you say to this?

Thanks,
clrux

[new2mass]

Walking to/from the Field's Corner station after dark seems a little sketchy to me, especially as a woman. But Field's Corner is also a very patchy neighborhood and I don't have a good sense of which directions are okay to walk to/from the station and which directions are not okay.