King's Cross area
 

Am looking at apartments in London. How is the area around King's Cross? Used to be a little seedy.

MUCH improved, there's been a huge clean-up of buildings and undesirables with the arrival of the Eurostar terminal at St Pancras. Still got a very busy ring road running through it and isn't exactly picturesque, but certainly safe, unlike it's past.

A lot depends on exactly where somewhere is. People selling or renting property often have a very elastic idea of how far any given neighbourhood name extends. It's worth checking the exact postcode on Google Streetview.

Used to be awful. Now it is much better and very convenient for transport.

But one can't generalize (or generalise depending on where you are from). There is a lot of variation. We'd need the street name, or even better the postal code.

When I walked around my old stomping grounds - stayed in tacky B&bs there for years - I was surprised by how much the lack of re-developement there was and things seemed, on the southside of Kings X anyway as tacky as usual - that said appearances can be deceiving - I always felt safe here and not far away is the University of Lonon environs and nice areas. But there did indeed seem to be late at night lots of seedy types hanging about

Maybe within the last year this has all changed???????

bargepoles are not long enough - no way.

not saying it's not safe, but lots of the environs are not very pleasant,

unless you want to be near the eurostar terminus at St. Pancras, I would look elsewhere.

I'm w/ annhig actually. The area is much nicer/safer than it used to be. But even w/o knowing exactly where the flat is, it wouldn't be my fist choice (or 6th choice for that matter). The redeveloped/upgraded areas still tend to be quite busy/congested.

Personally, the only place I'd stay near Kings Cross would be the Renaissance Marriott at St Pancras -- but the Royal Suite @ £7,500 a night its a bit above my pay grade. :)

I stayed in the area for years and it was NEVER unsafe - it may have looked unsafe but unless you stayed there and walked around a lot at night you may think it looked unsafe - tacky and an incovenient location yes but I disagree with janis that it was ever unsafe - I can attest it were not.

London Evening Standard 2011-08-22: King's Cross was today named as London's worst Tube station for crime, . . .

Tube station is not the area Love!

What if say Trafalgar Square tube station was high in crime would you say the whole Trafalgar area was high in crime - not necessarily - I spent lots and lots of time poking around Kings X at all hours of night and never saw anything worrisome - but yes in Tube stations I am always on my guard - I think you are comparing apples and oranges in this case dear.

I'm just wondering:
With so many different, pleasant neighborhoods in central London, why is Kings Cross the first focus of the OP?
Just curious.

Kings X would be about the last neighborhood in central London I would want to stay in - I have stayed there because I am on a starvation budget but otherwise IMO this is about the worst of the worse areas - not because it is unsafe but oh so dreary.

"<i>Trafalgar Square tube station</i>"

Huh???

he means Charing Cross, Jjj.

i think he's been on the paint thinners again.

I knew what he meant ;)

But the question is -- did he???? >)

" King's Cross was today named as London's worst Tube station for crime, . . ."

It wasn't.It attracted slightly more crimes than Oxford Circus. But, as overwhelmingly London's busiest tube station, it attracted many times more travellers than the tube stations in those ghastly tourist ghettos so often recommended here.

So your chances of being pickpocketed at King's Cross are infinitely lower than they are at hellholes like Russell Square (the transport hub for Bloomsbury) or Gloucester Road (halfway to Bristol, but unaccountably recommended by foreigners as a good place to stay. Probably because it's nearer to New York than to central London).

But whoever expected numeracy from old fogeys? Which isn't ageist. The likelihood is that Mrs F and I are rather older than the whining ninnies connipting over King's Cross. We've lived in the area for over half our lives and haven't had a single complaint.

As for "dreary". It's got better museums than anywhere in Britain outside Liverpool, Oxford and the rest of London. Better theatres than almost anywhere in America apart from New York. And infinitely better eating places than the gastronomic deserts in Bloomsbury or Gloucester Road where the prematurely geriatric can eat crap food, watching other tourists feel smug about staying somewhere they've got no chance of ever bumping into a Londoner.

why don't you tell us what you really think, Flanner?

>> why don't you tell us what you really think, Flanner?<<

I suspect that he is Basil Fotherington-Thomas.

And I claim my £5.

sorry, Patrick, I'm all out of £5s. will 50p do?

I did not realize that the Kings X area encompasses the British Museum area as flanner seems to indicate it does - my comments about dreary concern the immediate area around Kings X station - especially to the south and east.