Green St, Martinez

Green Street runs roughly east-west on the northern end of Martinez--just to south of the Martinez Court House. Like most streets in northern Martinez, it is has a number of pre-WWII homes along it.

On the far eastern end of Green, however, you definitely feel as if you are close to the courthouse: you have older office type buildings and open air parking lots. There are auto repair shops and an open field or two as well. It is not the most attractive of streets here and you get a lot of traffic as well from people headed to the downtown or the Amtrak station.

As you head west past Berrellesa Street, Green becomes almost exclusively residential with a number of older homes dating from the early 20th Century as far as I can tell. You find a number of older, squarish apartment buildings and walk-up bungalows here. Green gets progressively nicer as it begins sloping up into the hills. These homes are large and many of them have been renovated to the point they look fairly new. The adobe wall and red-tiled roofs show little sign of wear and the yards have been fashionably redecorated. (I believe the mayor of Martinez lives up here in one of these nicer homes.)

I came here to look at an apartment right on the corner with Berrellesa which I really liked. But the real draw of the street is up on the hill. (I believe the neighborhood here is known as the Pill Hill neighborhood and is definitely one of the nicest in Martinez--especially if like older historic neighborhoods.)

Homes around Green, btw, tend to sell for around $300K--though no home has sold on Green in at least a year. The benefit of the location is that you are within walking distance of Main Street, which is great if you want to get some morning coffee, work at the courthouse or want to hop on the Amtrak to head to Sacramento or the Richmond BART on the commuter. The drawback is that there is a bit of a homeless wino problem in Martinez that is a bit more prevalent at nighttime.

Overall, this is pretty nice area and pretty affordable. A pretty good deal if you can get it to work for you in terms of commute times and housing needs.