Monterey Park Area...safe? (Lynwood, Huntington Park: low income, apartment complex, house)

[Kool Aid]

Monterey Park used to be safe years 40 years ago. Alot of Asian and Hispanic gangs. Not a great place to raise your children. Also, alot of robberies and break-ins take place during the day while people are at work. Sorry folks, I used to live here years ago and have seen and heard alot of tragic stories. Not all of the crimes are publicised or in the media because it happens on a frequent basis. When you see steel bars on all the windows of homes in a neighborhood, it might give you clear indication to look elsewhere.

[ragnarkar]

Moderately safe, can depend on the neighborhood.. probably comparable to Pasadena or Anaheim overall..

Nearby cities of San Gabriel, Alhambra, and Rosemead can also be considered.

[Domsey]

Will he have a car? If so, Downtown/Eagle Rock/Echo Park/Silver Lake/Miracle Mile. Monterey Park is fine but not the place to make industry connections.

[superlative]

It's 'asian-town', good and safe area; mostly middle aged folks so it's quiet. I got a lot of friends that live in MPK, they're also in their 30s. But the only warning I give you is to tell your boy that if he plans to drive; please oh please make damn sure to watch out for middle aged asian drivers. Even I'm afraid of their tendencies where they possess not surprising but perilous freaky driving 'skills'.

Cheers.

[A1Lexo]

Monterey Park is a nice area. Quiet, mostly middle class, mostly Chinese (famous in China I hear, as an example of Chinese achievement in the U.S).

It's a bit slow, and a bit boring, but area's nearby have plenty of nightlife.

[someguyhere]

I've lived here my whole life. If you're not Chinese, you won't get along with the people. They're all Chinese immigrants, most can't mutter a single word in English. This is an extremely boring area with nothing to do. All stores here are in Chinese characters, so who knows what the hell they are. I never shop here. I always drive to other cities to do my shopping. If you ever drive in Chinese Monterey Park, be sure to pray beforehand. Monterey Park has some of the worst drivers ever, and I've driven through most of LA County, parts of Ventura County, San Diego, parts of Utah, parts of Colorado, Seattle, and parts of Mexico. This is not an exaggeration; they are the worst drivers. They're bicycling is not very good either. Watch out for bicyclists, because it's like they have a death-wish. There's Asian gangs, but it's not as bad as the surrounding cities like Rosemead, San Gabriel, and Alhambra. There's a lot of car-breaking's though. My brother-in-law had his car stolen here. Some Chinese guy saw the whole thing, but didn't care to report it or call the police. If you're not Chinese, be prepared to get stared at anywhere you walk around.

Also I forgot to mention one last thing. I'd advice taking careful notice of your kids in public schools in Monterey Park. I had a friend who attended Mark Keppel high school years ago, who had trouble with the math class because the teacher at the time was discussing part of the lecture in Chinese. The parents had to set up a couple of interviews with the teacher, because she never quite learned that this is America and NOT Communist China and students need to be taught in English.

[ccm123]

Yes, safe and low key area. I dated a lady that lived there when I lived in Pasadena.

[hken]

For some 18 year old kid, it is perfectly safe to live there...plus he can get really cheap Chinese food at all hours of the night. It's a somewhat working class Chinese immigrant town so I can see why people wouldn't want to RAISE their kids there, but this is not the situation here and living there is fine. Worst would happen is someone busting into his car if he left some valuable in the open.

[e_rack]

So I've been living in Monterey Park for the past few years, first time living here, close to Atlantic and the 10. I would not recommend this area. I find most of the people around here to be extremely rude. Here are some of the things that have happened since I've moved here. Terrible drivers all over the place so be very careful. People will be driving 2mph and stopping in the middle of the street for no reason. If you want to, you will have a reason to honk your horn at least once everytime you drive you around here. The drivers around here are terrible and it is dangerous. So be careful. Once my girlfriend and I left for the weekend and when we came home on Sunday someone had hit my girlfriend's car parked right in front of the house. Pretty severe damage. Fortunately a neighbor saw it and made the guy pull over and leave his info. Who knows if he would have done that if nobody had seen him. Even when you're not driving your car can still get into accident. Anytime I park my car across the street from my house someone keys it. My car was in perfect condition before moving here and now the passenger side is totally keyed and scratched. My girlfriend parked her car across the street and someone keyed it and also broker her driver's side mirror off on two different occasions. Honda quoted $500 to repair it so I took the days off (twice) to go to junkyards and fix the mirror. All because someone doesn't want us to park in a certain area on a public street. It takes a pretty terrible person to destroy a neighbor's car multiple times at night while they sleep. I called the police and they got video from the apartment complex across the street. You could see the guy walk up to the car and break the mirror but it was too far away. Police did a half ass job of trying to catch the guy. Instead of getting footage from all the cameras so maybe they could see where the guy walked from or to they just got that one video and said they can't recognize the guy so there's nothing else they can do. Pretty disappointing. The other day I watched a lady walk across the street at a light even though it said don't walk. The guy at the light honked at her and she turned around and started screaming at him. Clearly she has no clue how walking at intersections works. People have just left their garbage, shopping carts and old furniture right in front of my house. Once a box of garbage had a bunch of junk mail in it. My girlfriend called the city to report it and someone from the city actually came out and looked through the junk mail. They went to the person's house and told them if they leave their garbage like that out on the street again they were going to get a ticket. The person from the city called and told us all that after so that was actually kind of nice. Today I found a plastic bag full of garbage right under my window at the front of my house that smelled terrible. We have a metal fence around our yard so how this ended up in my yard under my window I have no idea. What kind of person would leave their garbage in another person's yard right under their window? Packages have also been stolen from the front of my house. There is also gambling in the house right next door to me that is open at all hours of the night. You can hear them shuffling the maj jong tiles and there are people constantly coming and going and taking all the parking on the street. I don't know how other areas of Monterey Park are, hopefully better than this area I live in. Just overall the people around my area really suck and I would not recommend living here.

[mature423]

Lived there from middle school to college. Somewhat safe but my car has been broken into and stolen twice. Lots of petty people fighting over street parking. The worst part about Monterey Park is the cops. They're corrupt as hell. They love setting up speed traps with cops pretending to be pedestrians on a busy 4 lane street and walking across. They expect people from the other side of the street to come to a full stop. If not they have motorcycle and patrol cars ticketing hundreds of people. Luckily I never got one of THOSE tickets. But I know I was wrongfully targeted by a cop hiding in the parking of some business. I saw him while going to get groceries. I saw him there coming back home but because I looked at him, he came after me and claimed I was speeding when I clearly wasn't because I knew he was there. They do this because they know we aren't going to take the day off to fight it in court. Sheriffs are corrupt, they're just road pirates. Of course they didn't do much when my car was stolen twice. They had no problem having it towed to the tow yard to force me to pay hundreds for it being there half a day before I was even contacted.

Monterey Park and Cal State LA is close to east LA which is not safe. Neither is surrounding cities like El Monte/La Puente/Pomona which are very dangerous (3 of the most dangerous cities in San Gabriel Valley). More than people would think, lots of gangs, robberies and murders that don't always make it into crime reports. Arcadia and San Marino are much safer but more expensive.