Submitted by gman2391 t3_104y22p in newhampshire
Starting a new job in Manchester in a couple weeks so it looks like I'll be getting to know the city.
What are some known areas to avoid or the "bad" areas? What are some places I should definitely check out?
Crazy how this is generally true in a lot of cities. That and Pleasant St
Same in Nashua. The tree streets aren't as bad here, but it's still the least nice part of the city.
Are there any nice parts of nashua?
South Nashua is pretty Nice, so is the Broad st area out towards Hollis. North end by Greeley street is my personal favorite though. Lovely homes on tree lined streets, queit and nice but still walking distance to downtown.
Truthfully with the exception of tree streets, parts of downtown, and possibly French Hill, everywhere in the city ranges from decent to nice. French Hill is a bit crappy but overall not bad, just kinda dumpy.
Edit: I also forgot to mention the Fifield street area, south east of downtown. Again, quiet and nice, homes are cute and nice, but still walking distance to downtown.
Which is ironic because Pleasant St isn’t pleasant lol
Same in Lewiston Maine
Hadn't heard this before. Think it's just that a lot of cities have streets named after trees.
the furthest north ends of all the tree streets are fine; it’s like being in a different city when you get to north ash street, it’s actually bizarre how fast it shifts in that area
People keep saying this. It makes no sense. If you avoid Elm Street and South Willow Street, you miss out on most of the city's shopping options (though I wouldn't want to be on much of Elm St. late at night).
Manchester's not THAT bad, despite what people say, especially compared to big cities.
Generally avoid the tree streets (east of Elm St), especially at night if you're by yourself. Avoid the parks if you're by yourself. Watch out for homeless encampments.
What kind of job did you get?
This is pretty much my understanding. I'm just not looking to catch myself on the wrong street unknowingly.
I'm a manufacturing engineer
That won't happen. I've lived around here since I was born and essentially anything you'd want to/be doing if you're just working there/wanting to get some tasty food or do something fun is perfectly fine. I've never even been close to seeing an issue. Unless you like taking night time walks in dark areas that look sketchy I don't think you'll have any problems.
Yea, Manchester's really not like that. You're not going to walk into the wrong area and someone will take violent offense to your presence. It's more like walking off Elm Street into a dark road and getting mugged kind of thing. There's been a lot of stories in the past few years about that happening in broad daylight in the parks.
It's really just a matter of keeping an eye out for your surroundings, like any city.
this is accurate
there are a couple areas that aren’t taken care of well and can get a little ~rowdy~ and there’s some smashed TVs on the sidewalk etc but I was still able to walk in those areas alone— or with my young child— regularly without a problem when I lived in Manch for a few years
I got aggressively catcalled once by a really drunk guy near where the Dominos is on Maple St and I told him to suck my dick and kept walking home with my pizza 🤷🏻♀️ (*my kid was not with me that time)
East of Elm is a huge area to avoid
If you've ever lived in an actual city, it's all pretty safe.
If you cry yourself to sleep after hearing people speak a little Spanish, stay out.
Yeah, I’m from Nashua, have lived in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn for 7 years now. If anyone thinks anywhere in NH is “rough” in any capacity, it’s 100% subconscious racism or classism. Working class/diverse areas are not “the hood”
I would take a look at the Somersworth crime statistics. They are not good and I would never choose to live there
But I agree that in general there aren’t really rough places in NH. Manchester can be sucky sometimes for petty stuff like car breakins or a stolen package (I lived there for a few years, on a tree street no less) but the sharks and the jets aren’t roaming around snapping and looking for people to fight, and the way people talk about it sometimes you wouldn’t know that
No place in Manchester is that bad, in my experience, but the worst areas IMO are
New Horizons on Manchester and Pine.
Walsh Ave. on the west side.
Stanton Park.
>Stanton Park
I used to throw a frisbee with my friends at Stanton Park all the time. Mid-day. Never noticed anything sketch—what was I missing?
Broad day light you'd be fine. Don't go there after dark though. My DM lived across the street from the park near the Elementary school there. We would hear gunshots all the time.
Once there was a fire fight on the south side of the park. Their were so many shots we all figured it was firecrackers, nope. When we left 45 minutes later, half the manch pd was there investigating.
I live right off of Elm street and I have for a bit over 2 years. Honestly my only advice would be not to walk around alone at night, be kind to those when you can, and remember that you can always get a ring camera and/or dash camera for extra safety. Keep your doors for your house and car locked as I've seen handprints on my doors in the morning from break in attempts. Honestly, it's really not as unsafe as it is sometimes portrayed and I say this as a 24 year old woman, welcome to the area !!
"Not unsafe" "get cameras, attempted breakins" lol.
I mean I'd take these precautions living anywhere. I grew up in a farm area in MA and I still did this stuff, honestly I think it's crazy to not always make sure everything is locked or to walk around alone at night 🤷♀️ I don't have a house camera (I rent), but I can check my cars cameras anytime.
This question comes up a lot in the NH and Manchester subreddits. I usually recommend taking a look at this map. The tree street advice is a bit outdated at this point imo. Parts of Elm, Chestnut, Beech, Maple and Ash are in beautiful parts of the city with million-dollar homes.
Particular areas to avoid include the area where the grid diverts between Central High School (South St, Jane St, etc.), the Cumbies by Bronstein Park, and most of the Kalivas Union neighborhood. On the west side you'll want to avoid the Piscataquog and parts of the Notre Dame neighborhood south of Sullivan St. Most of these areas are just run down rather than dangerous. If you're not looking for trouble or selling drugs they're usually fine to drive through. Welcome to our fair city, let us know if you have any questions about particular streets.
so basically, everywhere in Manchester you should not live in
That map is very helpful, thank you
That map has some decent/nice neighborhoods in red. Trust your instincts, the sketchy areas look sketchy. Drive around, see what looks good and not good, you’ll know.
oof. The entire downtown?
Manchester is the “safest” city I’ve ever been to. Some homeless, some assholes. But if you have spent anytime in real cities, you’ll consider it wonderland.
I think what turns a lot people off about Manchester is that it’s overwhelmingly low income (and we’re all aware that a large part of the city is brownskinned, and that’s too scary for a lot of people) so there aren’t any super swank neighborhoods and a lot of the city is run down, and people automatically equate that to very bad/dangerous. Shit happens there and I’m happier where I am now but it’s not a place where people move to die
If someone can’t handle living in Manchester for a few years they probably can’t handle living in a real city unless it’s in a guarded building and they never go anywhere other than their own neighborhood
None. Lock your car and don’t leave valuables visible in it (I follow those rules EVERYWHERE). But it isn’t the kind of place where you’re going to get mugged or assaulted out of nowhere just because you took a wrong turn down a shady street. I’m a 38 year old female, I’d say my situational awareness is average, and Ive been running on all the “tree streets” and all over Manch regularly for the past 3 years and I’ve seen some sketchy stuff but never ever felt unsafe. Well, safe from the kind of thing you’re worried about - on plenty of the roads I’m extremely concerned about distracted drivers as a pedestrian.
I can't help you since I'm not all that familiar with Manchester, but prepare yourself for maybe one serious answer here and a bunch of people telling you to avoid it completely.
Thank you, this is fully what I am expecting. Just hoping to find a real response or 2 mixed in
I will say that you should try and catch a Fisher Cats game in the summer, they're a good time if you like baseball and it's like $10 for a ticket.
I'm not from Manchester. But if you read a few issues of The Union Leader with a map of the city handy, some obvious patterns will present themselves.
Lake Ave has historically been a "bad" area but it's been a few years since I've spent much time there.
The section of Pine Street closest to the homeless shelter has seen problems recently because of a large homeless encampment.
Most areas are just fine for most folks.
I have a good friend on the Manchester PD night watch and he’s warned me to stay away from just about any housing projects and clubs. He responds to a couple shootings (many victimless/ unlawful discharge) per week.
I’ve lived here on and off between 2012 to present day, and Manchester really isn’t that bad. I’d say the rougher areas are mostly residential with convenience stores, laundromats, etc. you likely won’t be patronizing anyway. Basically, between 10pm - 6am, I’d just avoid walking alone in the area of pine street to maple street, between maybe orange street and somerville street (pine through maple streets run north to south, parallel to elm street, and orange through somerville streets run east to west, perpendicular to elm street), which is easy enough to do.
Enjoy your new job!
I feel safe walking on Elm Street, and most redditors would probably consider me an old lady (although I don't!). It's generally bustling with activity and it's hard to imagine it striking fear into the hearts of so many people in this subreddit. I agree with the others who are saying there are sketchy areas, and for the most part you can tell them when you see them, but there also lots of safe, quiet neighborhoods in every direction.
Yes, Manchester has an excessive unhoused population. Individuals from all over the state and even neighboring states are sent to Manchester for assistance even though all the service providers in town are far beyond capacity. It's obnoxious and insensitive to the people in need. But this kind of thing is going on all over the country right now.
Places to check out: The Currier Museum, Dorrs Pond at Livingston Park, Boards & Brews, the Bookery, Dancing Lion Chocolate, the Foundry ... it kinda depends on your interests.
Thank you for the Dancing Lion Chocolate mention! We re-open on Tuesday after a much-needed rest.
I moved here for a job almost a year ago.
Elm street (sort of the ‘main street’ - city hall is there) should be safe. Few homeless people on occasion, but if you were to be mugged there even later at night it’d at least be surprising.
South of the ‘main’ city core near the mall is also safe. North of the main city is safe. West of the river is fairly safe. Out in the periphery/suburbs should be extra safe.
The area immediately east of Elm street is the ‘bad part of town’ that most complaints on the subreddit about drugs/homelessness/crime stem from. There’s a homeless encampment around there, and weather permitting they’ll switch over to one of the nearby parks. Seen a grand total of one altercation leading to arrest in the past year with my own eyes, so it’s not like assaults are rampant.
This is one of the safest states in the country and the worst parts of its largest city are… right around the national average, as far as I know.
I forgot about the West side! Anywhere near West High and CMC
There's no place more dangerous on the west side than inside CMC, getting any treatment or procedure.
I live and work in Manchester. I used to live and work in Los Angeles. Manchester's a pretty safe city.
you'll be able to tell! elm st is fun obvi. it's not scary here hahaha
If I can tell, I've already gone too far!!
The Trees. (Spruce, Cedar, Pine, Beech, Maple, Chestnut)
I lived for 12 years on the South Side wiiiicked close to the Londonderry line (got out of dodge about 6 mos ago) and that's probably the best-removed from all the BS Manchester has to offer.
Manchester is pretty safe. It gets nicer north of Bridge Street and much nicer North of Webster.
There are little gems in the “tree streets area” so don’t be intimidated to venture off elm.
We moved here from Boston recently because my wife grew up in the city and bought a great house in the North End, which is great
Rochester has a higher crime rate than Manchester according to the fbi and it's definitely not a dangerous place to be so all the hype about manchvegas is certainly overblown.
The highest crime rate in the state is in somersworth and even that’s not much above the national average
Exactly, you would be nuts to feel unsafe there. The NH cities don't place in the highest crime rate cities in new England and neither does Lawrence or Lowell. They all have incidents since they have a lot of people living there but the rates of crime are relatively low.
I grew up in Lawrence but had no idea the crime rate there gets exaggerated tbh
I assumed people were being accurate when they said there’s an unusually high crime rate
Yeah i’m pretty sure the most dangerous places in New England are near the Springfield area. Although old money Boston folks will have you think Lawrence is a war zone.
I looked it up— according to FBI stats our chances of being the victim of a crime in Lawrence MA is 1 in 89, and it’s right around the national average
In Somersworth NH our risk of the same is 1 in 28 😐
We really just love to blame everything on people who are low income or living in poverty and people with brown skin, and Lawrence and Manchester make pretty damn easy targets in that regard— which is sad and pathetic
Maybe the reason I grew up thinking Lawrence was overall ~dangerous and crimey~ is because I lived in the area that’s marked with the red X on this map during that time; I find it hard to believe the neighborhood by neighborhood stats are the same or even close to the same now as they were when I lived there multiple decades ago, and if not maybe it’s just what I was exposed to (the people my parents kept company with, getting the shit beat out of me by a classmate on my way home from school in 2nd grade— I was allowed to walk alone to and from school at Weatherbee starting in 1st grade if that tells you anything, and at some point that’s fuzzy timewise there was the murder of a neighbor) along with what everyone around me was always saying (“Joe Schmoe is a drug dealer😮”) at the point in my life when I was young, impressionable, and didn’t have a great grasp on the world around me yet
I've lived in a number of cities large NYC, London and small like Manchester, and others you haven't heard of.
By and large, with regard to safely, how one carries themself when out and about in any city matters more than the city and neighborhood they're in. There is no where in Manchester I don't go due to safety concerns.
NH is sufficiently affluent and suburban that a small percentage of the those venturing into Manchester are horrified to see poor people, sometimes living in the street. And they'll lose sleep over being asked for change or a five. Its mostly these folks who give Manchester a bad name and scare other people.
Also, know that almost 10% of the population of NH lives in Manchester, so it's quite different from most of the state: many more people, density, homes, etc etc etc. More. More is often bad to suburbanites.
Anywhere in Manchester is still better than most places in the rest of the country. Just keep your eyes up wherever you go and you’ll probably be fine!
It may be an unpopular opinion, but I would avoid walking on many trail systems alone, personally. The rail trail on the south side has had tons of problems and even a murder in broad daylight. The Piscataquag rail trail has a lot of homeless camps. The Massabesic trails are popular, but people get mugged there. I’d just avoid being anywhere isolated by yourself. Use your street smarts everywhere else and you’ll be fine. It’s not that bad, it’s not that great though either.
Have they found bodies/skeletal human remains on the rail trail a few times in the last decade or so or am I thinking of somewhere else? I just remember being shocked by it because NH— even Manchester— just isn’t very murdery
There was a murder in broad daylight back in September on the south rail trail. People I know have had some very scary encounters on that trail. I believe there have been several other deaths too. It’s just really not safe even though it’s in an otherwise okay part of Manchester.
All of Manchester
Nothing in Manchester is that bad. You’ll get those pockets of small trashy neighborhoods, but no real threats like gangs or drug dealers out in the wild.
As someone who worked in Manchester here's what I can tell you:
Avoid Bridge Street, Valley Street, and the New Horizons Shelter sidewalks if you don't want to get held up by Junkies (Personal experience ). Another thing to avoid is Market Basket on Welfare day which can be a mad house with everyone on line with multiple shopping carts.
And whatever you do avoid the West Side After 7pm.
Check out pawtuckaway. Its right up the road from Manch and its a great place to hike. As for the city itself... you'll know where to avoid by counting how many needles are on the ground.
Manchester
Lol, got ‘em
Don't go on Manchester street, anywhere near Elm St city area ( Union, Hanover, Lake, Pine, Lowell, Maple, Wilson, Valley, Spruce, Cedar, Lincoln, Silver, Somerville; that area)
My exes place on Granite street….bad news. She will fuck you for days then ruin you
I stopped listening after "she will fuck you for days" tbh
If it ends in “anchester”. Jokes. Stay away from tree streets.
I haven’t been living there for a while, but I always avoid all the parks at night. Never had any trouble. Trust your street senses. If your brain tells you not to go down that street, don’t go.
Manchganistan
Gestures generally
Wilson Street
when in doubt, avoid tree streets as everyones said already
It’s New Hampshire. Regardless your in one of the safest states in the country. That being said crime happens in some of the nicest places, just use your head and avoid a situation or area that your gut tells you isn’t a good idea. Realistically though 99% of the time your safe and there won’t be an issue.
I live on one of the tree streets that people constantly claim is an area to avoid. I've lived here over a year. Compared to Philly it's nothing lol. There is a homeless encampment like 5 blocks away but I've never had an issue with that. I'm not one to go wandering around after dark. A few times we've walked down to elm st and back but never encountered anything weird.
In my 1.5yr experience I have seen homeless people around but they generally leave you alone. Saw a guy pissing on bush next to my building and have had a couple ask me for change outside the Cumberland farms but compared to Philly or Baltimore that's very tame lol. I don't regularly wander around the city but when I have, I've personally never seen used needles anywhere. For crime, one time I accidentally left my truck unlocked (I work a lot so it truly was an accident) and that happened to be the nite that someone decided to rummage through my car. All they took was a spare wallet with some cash in it and all the change. They left the Leatherman, the $200 LL Bean raincoat and loaded handgun mags in the car though lol. I was still pissed off but oh well. One time we also were woken up by cops executing a warrant a couple blocks away. Had the whole block filled with police cars and were yelling at him to open the door through a megaphone.....at like 5am... lol
There's been a few times I've seen something that sketched me out and when I go to buy a house it won't be in the area I live now, but with that said, it's really not that bad. ESPECIALLY during the day. You'll be fine. And if you're still weirded out get some pepper spray or carry piece. NH has great resources for everyone to exercise 2A rights if you want to and the training for it too. 👍
At 70 comments for a very small city in a very small state. Only in America.
Manch isn’t that bad concidering other cities are much worse. Elm is fun, there is a delicious pizza place further down Elm called Elm House of Pizza. Hop Knot is a cool (I think somewhat new) restaurant that sells pretzel based food, had one of the best sandwiches of my life there recently. JFK for hockey/skating. Def check out a Fisher Cats game. If you like golfing head over to Derryfield. Welcome OP!
Don't play in the road.
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The impression I get is Manchester's just dumpy overall. Not like a big city where you have entire neighborhoods that you just don't go in for safety reasons.
I mean, looking for housing, it's probably important to ask what parts are sketchier, but just walking around exploring, I don't think it's a situation where you desperately need to avoid areas.
Tree streets are a Nashua thing, Manchester has its own sub FYI:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ManchesterNH/comments/
South of bridge and north of valley seems to be the roughest area - and relatively speaking its not that rough. Check out the crime map:
https://www.crimemapping.com/map/nh/manchester
Homelessness seems to of ticked up since the pandemic, pan handlers and people rooting through unlocked cars is on the rise.
So weird how things shifted so quickly.
I used to rent an apartment on pine about 800 ft from bunny's superette, and it was super safe, never a worry.
Of course, this was back in '89....
Anywhere around Bunny's is still safe.
According to this it's "downtown Manchester"
mmirate t1_j37lpdb wrote
That's easy. Tree streets.