milonas10

This great north/south street begins at the area's shopping street on 25th Avenue and offers an easy way to get to Hillsdale Shopping Center, various schools, and at least two distinct neighborhoods. It also provides access to 'The Lanes', a network of cul-de-sacs terminating in parks that are also near the shopping center. These 2 bedroom, 1 bath cottages were built after WWII and all back into these luxurious parks some with kiddie equipment, some outfitted as tennis courts, etc. What a treasure this little area is!

Roughly parallel to Poplar Ave., W. Santa Inez is the gateway to the wilderness of Hillsborough, while remaining partly in San Mateo. A thoroughly residential street, it provides great access to the hills directly off of El Camino. Again, the houses were built one at a time. The San Mateo part of the street is more affordable than the Hillsborough part. Most buses (school and city) have pick up stops at El Camino & W. Santa Inez. Lovely homes, leafy street, two city access - this is truly a major venue in San Mateo Park.

Originally part of the Borel Estates (whose decendents gave 11 acres for the nearby middle school), this street only goes west of El Camino. It is the central street for a tree-lined neighborhood built in patches (5-10 homes at a time), is near a couple of small shopping malls, and provides immediate access to HWY 92 which goes from Hayward in the East Bay to Half Moon Bay on the Pacific Ocean. I taught at the middle school for years and got to know the 'hood well. While almost all San Mateo housing is more expensive than anyone out of area expects (home of the $500,000 fixer upper!), it seems that good value for one's dollar is present in south San Mateo as well as great Bay Area access.

The whole street is east of El Camino (facing St Matthew's Church) and includes a medium range residential area, a light industrial area (plant nurseries to commercial rug cleaning), and great worker's cafes (Mexican to American). It is another old neighborhood with mature trees and backs into San Mateo's Central Park for even more charm. As a fan of mixed neighborhoods, this area is more pleasing than the one I grew up in (west of El Camino, homes only, upper middles class). It feels like the potential for amazing discovery is more city-like than suburban on this street.

At the juncture of Burlingame, San Mateo & Hillsborough is a neighborhood called San Mateo Park (as distinguished from San Mateo's Central Park). It's a park in the greenest sense of the word and has hundreds of one-of-a-kind homes that have been around since the 1920s, when San Mateo was the vacation spot for San Franciscans. West Bellevue has an 'island' of cork trees (the largest outside of Portugal according to local legend), is close to Burlingame Avenue shopping, the recreation center, Park School (award winning grammar), and other amenities.

This is a very long north/south street in San Mateo. The end nearest Burlingame has a very affordable little neighborhood with a mini-mall (Starbucks & Safeway) within walking distance of 'downtown' Burlingame. San Mateo High School adds traffic and teens to the ambience, but most are well-behaved. At night, the Performing Arts Center brings light opera, school plays, and San Francisco companies to the suburbs. East of El Camino, Delaware has always been the area with the most rentals and reasonably priced homes.

B Street in its entirety (not just South B) has the most interesting and varied shops, restaurants, entertainment options, and is just citified enough to be interesting to singles. There are antique shops, movie theatres, and restaurants serving everything from sushi to papusas. Brew pubs, import stores, coffee houses, ravioli delis, and a couple of restaurants that have valets, all compete for your entertainment dollar. It's a blast, though some parts are funkier than others.

Leafy suburban street was part of large estate at the turn of the century. Large family homes, upper middle class setting, large 'islands' filled with specimen trees that slow down traffic and provide ambience. Hard to imagine as one comes off HWY 101 at this exit that this oasis is waiting on the west side of El Camino.