How's safe is it around Gilman & San Pablo? (Berkeley: apartment, crime)

[piscesyy]

Hi, I will be relocating to Berkeley, CA this summer and would like to know if the area around Gilman St. & San Pablo Ave is safe enough for a single female. How's the parking situation around this area?

Thanks.

[krudmonk]

It's good if you like punk, hardcore and metal shows.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

It's relatively OK. I particularly like the hood between there and the North Berkeley BART station. Some very nice properties in there.

[fizbin]

In the realm of 'is it good or bad' neighborhoods, this one is not sketchy. Lots of traffic on both streets you will not notice a couple of blocks away.

[18Montclair]

not bad imo.

Word to the wise, Gilman at 80 is the most harrowing interchange in the Bay Area. I hate driving through it.

[E14]

Its safe and expensive. To the south is west berkeley with some nortenos, but quiet. To the north is student housing.

[Forker]

I lived right there for a few years.

It's not completely safe in my opinion, but if you keep aware of your surroundings you should be relatively fine.

Be prepared to be harassed on a daily basis by homeless/poor/trashy people. Most of them congregate around the Pic n' Pac liquor by the Bingo place on San Pablo Ave.. They also like to stand in front of Wallgreens by Chipotle and beg you. Pic n' Pac liquor was actually shut down for selling alcohol to minors during those punk shows they have on Gilman St. there. Those punk kids are harmless, but they get annoying when they all hang out on the street and act like they own place.

There are also many industrial type areas on the west side of San Pablo towards the train tracks that feel really gross at night. There is also trash and things dumped on those streets.
Hopefully you will be more towards the East where the residential neighborhoods are.

My advice, do not go down the jogging trail at night past 10pm under the BART train bridge. Lots of shady people hang around there making Drug Deals/ Doing Drugs and stuff. The neighborhood riff-raff use that trail as their base of operations because it's not well lit and they can hide out there.

Overall the place has a somewhat shady vibe. Like something bad could happen, even though it probably won't, but it feels like it always has the potential. I think that comes from the amount of Homeless that hang around. Like if you go for a walk at night and see some random person hiding and sleeping next to a house in the neighborhood, there's that lingering potential of..."what is this freak going to do to me??" Especially when you hear them hacking up phlegm like they have a terminal disease you know? Maybe random strangers sleeping by your home is normal to Berkeley residents, or becomes normal at some point, but it never was normal for me however and that's why the area felt on the shady/sketchy side.

As a single female, I'd probably be more worried, but I don't know what it feels like as a woman since I'm male. I will tell you that 2 thuggish teenagers followed me home one night as I was walking through the neighborhood on my way home, Talking loud and trying to intimidate me. You know the thing where you want to look back to make sure it's okay, but you know that if you do, that will provoke them, so you just try and ignore them, that kind of thing. Anyway those thugs knew what they were doing, but I just acted like it wasn't a big deal, even though they were talking loud, trying to make me pay attention to them. They followed me all the way to my apartment, and I felt uncomfortable walking to my door and letting them see which unit I lived in, but just had to play the confidence up and not let those idiots intimidate me.

Anyway it was just a sucky feeling and situation.

There is a nice Japanese grocery store there, but parking is very limited and you will probably have to park by the bingo place to shop there. The bottom line is you will most likely have to deal with some drunkard from the Bingo place asking you for money on the way into the grocery store. Keep a tally of how many times you are asked for money by strangers. It will happen almost everyday, every where you go when you get out of your car. You will not be able to enter a store or leave one without some one asking you for money. They also like to hang around that Cheveron station by Pic n' Pac and ask you for money while you are pumping gas.

If you like to get out for walks around the neighborhood, be sure to bring extra pocket change, so that you can give it to all the people that will ask you for change on your walks or jogs.

I could tell you more stories, but I feel like I've explained it enough.
If you have anymore specific questions and would like to hear my answers I'd be more than happy to.

I think everyone could agree here that the further east you go on Gilman St., away from San Pablo, the nicer it gets. If you have to live in Berkeley I'd try to be more East of San Pablo.

Have fun being bored there, because there is literally nothing to do, except give out money to people who beg you for it every day.

[piscesyy]

thanks for the replies. i think maybe i should explore other parts of the city.

this place i'm looking is on Neilson between Gilman and Hopkins. any opinion/personal experience welcome, regarding 1. safety for a single female 2. parking situation 3. noise level

thanks.

[bayarea-girl]

If you are interested in living in Berkeley as well as any city in the bay check out the police data. Berkeley is a fairly safe place. There are homeless people yes, but where you fear for your life I wouldn't say that. The homeless are pretty harmless. There are plenty of things to do in Berkeley as well as the entire bay area. You just have to make friends and don't be afraid to step outside your house.

Here is the link to the City of Berkeley's crime page CrimeView Community Incident Map. You can look up information about an area even my address, street, and cross street with months and years worth of data.

Good luck to you.

[jzt83]

I rode my bicycle in the area for the first time last week. The area seemed kinda trashy and gentrified at the same time. I saw some homeless sleeping on the sidewalk and some random people here and there. It was a Saturday night and the area was surprisingly sleepy. It seems the closer to Albany up north the safer it felt, and the further east from San Pablo the safer it felt. The area at Gilman and San Pablo seemed just okay. Personally, the area is overpriced for the type of environment.