New Era Park? (Sacramento, Richmond, Alhambra: apartments, co-op, roughest)

[Slackramento]

OK! Here goes:

After planning for several months, my wife and I have finally relocated to the Sacramento area after living in a central neighborhood in DC for the last few years. We are currently staying with family in the suburbs while we look for our own pad somewhere on the grid.

What are your thoughts on the New Era Park neighborhood, just north of Google's definition of Midtown and south of the American River? We are both in our late 20 and live an active lifestyle (biking, jogging, hiking).

We want to be close to the action in Midtown, but would prefer to walk or bike to the nightlife, rather than have it at our doorstep. After having lived in DC, it is nothing for us to walk 15 or 20 minutes to get to and from bars. I have a bike I'm going to get repaired, and we're going to buy one for her, especially since I have heard that the grid is easily navigable by bike.

I work from home, and my wife is currently applying for several social work positions. My income alone is already over 3x the monthly rents I'm seeing, so I'm not worried about cost-of-living. We share one car, which she can drive to her job, if need be.

As for other details, we are vegetarians, so access to farmers' markets and a grocery store with a good produce section is pretty important to us. Bonus points if we can walk or bike to one of the "crunchier" health food stores to pick up the staples.

Thanks for any and all advice or neighborhood suggestions! Can't wait to land in Sac!

[wburg]

Sounds like a very good choice for the lifestyle you're looking for. New Era Park/Boulevard Park/Marshall School are the quieter residential neighborhoods north of central Midtown--the northernmost stretch of "entertainment district" is generally along J and K Street, so if you are 2-3 blocks farther north (G-H Street) you'll be far enough from the "action" that you won't hear it from home, except maybe at 2 AM when nightclub visitors stumble back to the cars they park in the residential neighborhoods. You'll also be a few steps from the American River bike trail, and the Sacramento Northern bike trail.

Plenty of resources for vegetarians nearby. Every Saturday there is a neighborhood farmer's market on 20th Street between J and K. There is a "gluten free" specialty store with a lot of vegetarian items on J and 26th. The Sacramento Natural Foods Co-Op is an easy bike ride from your neighborhood at 29th and S Street, and its new site at 28th and R Street (2-3 blocks closer) is under construction. Get some baskets for your bike so you can pack some cargo, unless you want to go all-out and get a bakfiets or something like that. Because there is a big market for it in Midtown, even the Safeway stores at 19th & and Alhambra and K, and the Grocery Outlet (a discount retailer) at 17th & Capitol stock a lot of vegetarian items and have good produce. If you like almond milk, the Blue Diamond Almonds factory store at 18th and C Street is the cheapest place anywhere to buy it (and almonds too!) A lot of local stores, even corner bodegas, carry a locally produced vegan nacho sauce called "Nacheez" that is worth a try. Farther south in Richmond Grove and along Broadway there are Asian specialty stores that carry a lot of specialty items for vegetarians (and vegan-friendly treats like mochi!) And if that isn't enough for you, within a year or two there will be a Whole Foods market built at 21st and L Street.

A whole lot of local restaurants have vegetarian options. Some specifically vegetarian/vegan places are Garden to Grill at 23rd and K Street, Mother at 10th & K, and Andy Nguyen's at 20th & Broadway, but you won't have any problem finding places to dine out in midtown Sacramento. If you do cheese, I recommend the spinoccoli pizza at Zelda's at 21st and O!

Potential concerns: There is an ongoing issue with homeless folks along the American River, the population gets pushed around here and there depending on who has complained most recently between North Sacramento, Midtown and the river parkway. This makes neighborhoods on the north end of Midtown frequent pedestrian routes for street folk walking from the river, shelters or social services (which are generally north of B Street and west of 16th.) Every once in a while (maybe a couple times a year) there are incidents of muggers who lay in wait for those drunk people returning from nightclubs to their cars, or residents returning to their homes, late at night. Don't ever leave anything visible in your car, not a Coke can or change for the parking meter, as thieves tend to work the streets looking for stuff to steal out of parked cars. And don't ever leave your bike outside, even locked, for any length of time (other than outside a business while you're out and about.) We're a big biking city, but we're equally popular with bike thieves.

[Slackramento]

wburg, Thanks for the detailed response! That is exactly the information we're looking for.

As for the downsides, our last neighborhood in DC had quite a few homeless folk--some regulars, some just passing through. That's not too big of a concern for us. And your note about not leaving anything visible in the car is really sound advice. My wife drove through and parked in some of the roughest areas of DC during her job as a social worker, and that was always a rule we stuck to.

How's the noise from the train? We have lived right up against some freight train tracks several years ago, and it wasn't too much of a problem since the train typically passed through pretty quickly. It never woke me up, but you would definitely know when it was passing through during the day.

[wburg]

Pretty minimal if you're more than 1-2 blocks from the tracks. You'll hear them sometimes, but it's not a big deal.

[xeney]

I've lived in New Era Park since 1998, and we love it here. With the river on one side, East Sac (good schools) on the other, and midtown to the south and west of us, it's really perfect. We were about your age and lifestyle when we bought our house, and we've stayed now that we are 40-something professionals with kids.

The homeless people here aren't much of a bother. They are around, but I have never been panhandled in this neighborhood and we've never had issues with theft or property damage, except for one guy who kept leaving our back gate open after he went through our trash cans. Pretty minimal, really, given how long we've lived here. This area is a little more diverse than midtown proper, I think -- still lots of young single people, but also families, retired empty nesters, older gay men. Also more racially diverse (that's sort of block-by-block), including non-white families that have owned or rented homes here for generations. The proximity to the river means that a lot of outdoorsy people choose this sector of midtown -- for a long time, almost everyone on my block owned a Subaru if they owned a car at all.

It's a slightly longer walk to some of the nightlife, but we prefer it that way. Easy walk, bike, or Uber ride to anywhere in the grid. (One downside is that public transportation is not great -- our local bus, the 34, runs once a hour and not at all on weekends. We are fairly close to light rail and the J Street buses, though.) We're a bit too far to walk comfortably to grocery stores since the Albertson's became a Rite Aid, but the Midtown farmer's market is an easy walk or bike ride, and the co-op is bikable. (Safeway is by distance, but you have to cross some busy streets through neverending construction obstructions.)

Oh, the train: it used to wake my kid up every damn morning and it drove me nuts. (Worse over here, somehow, than when we lived on 18th Street in midtown.) There is technically a quiet zone now but I still hear the train horn occasionally. I kind of like it, in theory; just not a fan of babies being awake at 4 a.m.

[la_cavalière]

What @wburg & @xeney said. We also live in New Era Park and love it. We walk/bike everywhere in Midtown & downtown, and the location is so convenient to the bike trail entrance (20th & C), the American River at Sutter's Landing, and pretty McKinley Park. It's very quiet here for a city neighborhood, and the huge trees provide great shade. We used to live on I Street, and that was just too close to the nightlife.

The Saturday Midtown Farmers Market is about a 20-minute walk for us. The new Co-Op and the Whole Foods will soon be open in Midtown, and both are bikeable, as is Safeway on Alhambra. We also have a plot in the community garden at C & 26th. (Anyone want any zucchini, tomatoes, basil or oregano???)

We live on D Street, two blocks from the tracks, and barely notice the trains, especially since the horns have all but stopped due to the Quiet Zone. However, I have a friend who lives just a few houses from the tracks (north of C Street), and the train noise can be pretty loud there.

Good luck!

[Slackramento]

Thank you all for the help! I'm really pumped to announce that we managed to snag one of the 2 apartments we saw today, so we'll be your neighbors as soon as next week! Just got to sign the final paperwork and move in!

Oh, and la_cavalière, we would LOVE some veggies if you end up with more than you can eat! :-)

[xeney]

Welcome to the neighborhood! If you are around this weekend, there is a neighborhood tradition of hiking up over the railroad levee to watch the Cal Expo fireworks from the railroad tracks (or crossing the pedestrian bridge over the freeway, where the view is even better).

[la_cavalière]

Originally Posted by Slackramento

Thank you all for the help! I'm really pumped to announce that we managed to snag one of the 2 apartments we saw today, so we'll be your neighbors as soon as next week! Just got to sign the final paperwork and move in!

Oh, and la_cavalière, we would LOVE some veggies if you end up with more than you can eat! :-)

Awesome! Send me a direct message and we'll hook you up. Also, the three neighborhood (Boulevard Park, New Era Park & Marshall School) throw a big National Night Out progressive party on Tues., Aug. 4 - great way to meet neighbors. We also have an Octoberfest party and holiday party.