East 14th St, Fremont

An attempt to make this street sound "nice". Old school Oaklanders know this as East 14th. Jam packed with action and a cultural melting pot. This street runs right through East Oakland and has a bus line right there, to get you to Downtown Oakland, BART and San Leandro. Watch you back though, many a folk have lost their lives on this oh so Oakland street. Gang activity, prostitution, and drugs often find their way into many-a-equations on the East side.

Hi there, I would like to share my experiences about this street since I am a local and lived here for 20+ years.

E14th street in Oakland was renamed to International Blvd a few years ago.I cant recall when exactly.

International blvd spans from Lake Merritt through Oakland and into San Leandro city. So it is a pretty long street. E14th passes near to Bay Fair Mall, but that is in San Leandro city. This review focuses on International Blvd as it goes through Oakland.

International Blvd starts from Lake Merritt neighborhood and proceeds south-eastwards.
From around 1st Avenue to around 15th Avenue along International Blvd. You will find
a small batches of chinese, cambodian, and korean grocery stores. There are more chinese grocery stores than the rest. So, if you need asian food goods and hardware, this is a nice place to visit for east oakland.

From 15th Ave and International to 25th Ave, you'll see a transition from asian stores to mexican stores. Between 15th Ave/International and 25th Ave/International, you could say its a bunch of houses with some small stores in between. The stores arent really worth mentioning. One notable on 25th Ave/International is there is a Jack In The Box fast food restaurant there.

From 26th Ave/International Blvd up until Fruitvale Blvd/International Blvd is apartment homes and a school with a few mexican restaurants. Always keep an eye out for Mexican taco trucks. They are some of the best eats in this area. And there is a Wendy's on Fruitvale and International. There
is a small medical facility located along this route.

Now, we come up to Fruitvale Blvd/International Blvd to High Street/International Blvd.
This is probably the defacto mexican area of the east bay. Fruitvale BART station is near by.
Along with small mexican restaurants. This is probably the busiest area of the Oakland East bay
since the transportation hub is here. Buses go through this route every few minutes. And the
foot traffic is quite high from 3 PM - 6 PM. The added car congestion also make this a busy street.

On sunday, there is really really tiny farmers market between the BART station and International Blvd.

On Cinco de Mayo, (A Mexican holiday), the street is closed off for a parade and a festival where vendors sells goods and some games are played. It would be best to avoid driving cars at that time
as cops give tickets for any reason at that time.

Past High Street/International towards San Leandro, we start getting into the shader section of Oakland. This is a long stretch of road. Crime starts going up, and the area gets worse looking as you go away from the Fruitvale section. From High Street/International and getting into the triple digit 100th Ave, it goes from food into industrial with a mix of housing. Liquor stores start appearing, Check and cash stores pop up, a gun shop near the end. I'm sure there is probably drug and arms dealers around here somewhere.

Overall, International Blvd is a street of mixed goods. It starts off fine, gets great around Fruitvale,
but then after High street, it all goes downhill.