Central Alameda

Central Alameda is one of those older neighborhoods with lots of pre-WWII bungalows and older wood buildings that is fairly common in the East Bay. It reminds me a lot of the western end of Berkeley actually, near the 4th Street Mall.
North of Clement in this neighborhood you hit the Alameda Marina. This is basically a parking lot for yachts, sailboats, schooners, except on the southern end of the marina where there are some abandoned buildings and empty lots.
Most of the surface streets here are residential with those aforementioned bungalow style homes being the standard private home in Central Alameda. The median home here sells for around $425 K, with prices ranging from around $300 K to $700 K.

Most of the homes here are older, although in some spots on the northern end you will find some more recent homes.
The foreclosure crisis has also hit this neighborhood pretty hard. More than 4 out of every 5 homes are on the market due to foreclosure.

Schools here are a little bit of a mixed bag as far as I can tell. The main elementary, Haight is just so so, although the two other elementaries that also serve the area—Edison and Franklin are very strong. The middle school—Wood is awful, but Alameda High is outstanding. I don’t know how to reconcile those sharp differences between schools that basically serve the same community, but that is what I found when I looked up information about the school system.

As to entertainment, restaurants, and all that, there is a fair amount going on. The main attraction here is Park Street on the far eastern end of the neighborhood. Here is where you will find restaurants like Pappo, a pricey European place; Asena, a Mediterranean place; Yume, a sushi place; and Burma Superstar.

Park Street also has a pretty good bar scene, with dives like John Patrick’s; sports bars like McGee’s and Scobies; a German bar, SpiesseKammer; pubs like Churchward; and lounges like The Lost Weekend and Lemon Tree. That is a pretty good selection even for a street in SF proper.

There is also the Alameda Theater, which plays a fairly straight forward selection of main stream films—right now they are playing Beasts of the Southern Wild, the latest Bourne film, and The Campaign.

Overall, this is pretty good spot for the younger crowd—the post college crowd and young couples I think would enjoy this neighborhood.

Bounded by Broadway, Central Avenue, Sherman Street and the Alameda/Oakland canal, Central Alameda is, for all intents an purposes, the essence of Alameda. While the neighborhood affords a few condominiums and apartment homes, the neighborhood is mostly saturated with single family homes. You’ll also see plenty of small, cozy homes, narrow properties and an overall traditional aesthetic. For those who live here, the area is largely mixed race, but white residents make up the majority.

Central Alameda offers a wide variety of housing options. The neighborhood is split pretty evenly between one and two story homes. Most of these homes are of the old Victorian style and were probably built around the 1930’s or 1940’s. They are small, stubby-looking, and don’t afford much lot room. In fact, they are situated on narrow properties, tightly packed along residential streets and offer those little walkways and small staircase that leads up to front porches. Properties are mildly tidy, with groomed lawns, but that’s about it. Driveways are also narrow, but feed deep into properties, making room for two to three cars to park in the spaces. Unfortunately, they are the kind where you have to park one car at a time. As a result, many residents have to park along the road, making street parking rather hard to come by during peak hours. For numbers sake, median household income, according to a 2009 city data census, is around $70,000/year. also, house values tend to circle around $650,000.

While Central Alameda stretches along the Oakland Inner Harbor, it offers plenty of transportation options. For one, the neighborhood provides quick access into Oakland with the 29th Avenue feeding right into Oakland’s Jack London Square area. Also, the Oakland Jack London Square Amtrak station itself (along with Highway 880) is a quick hop step and jump over into the closest Oakland community.

I've lived in Central Alameda (Minturn and Lincoln) since summer 2007. I really like the neighborhood, though I've got a couple of frustrations.

The major frustration is parking. Much of central Alameda didn't used to be a renter's paradise. Victorian homes converted into duplexes, triplexes, or n-plexes still only have one driveway. Including my neighbors, the four people living in my duplex have three cars. I've learned to expect to park a couple of blocks away. This is actually how I ended up picking up bicycling.

Central Alameda is heaven for bicyclists. Hardly anything is more than a 2 mile ride away and the island itself is quite flat. I really enjoy commuting to work on my bicycle and I rarely get into that impossible-to-park car unless my destination is taking me away from my fair city.

It's fairly quiet, though night winds bring in the sounds of BART and public transit isn't dreamy, but it's easy to get on a bus near home. Being in the middle of the island means traffic is less, as there just aren't that many attractions that are worth driving 25 MPH for three miles to experience.