East Van Buren St, Downtown

Van Buren Street in Phoenix, AZ, is mainly a business area. It is near schools, a few hospitals and a mental institution. Van Buren was popularly known for quite some time as the red light district of the area. It has recently been cleaned up by the Sheriff Department and looks better than it did 5 years ago.

Accommodation is readily available on this street as there are many hotels and small resorts and is absolutely not a big issue. Well known places over here are St. Luke’s hospital, APS building, Glass structure etc. Other places of visit are Heritage Square park, Verde park etc. The Maricopa medical center is also close to this street. My stay at ‘Spinners’ was awesome. The street equally offers a pleasant vibe to visitors.

There is a great shopping center on this street called Arizona center. There is a movie theater, some restaurants with outside patio, a small park with a desert garden and a cafe. It is very convenient to the conference center so it is a great place to relax if you are in phoenix on business.

Nearby there's a zoo, a desert botanical garden, a golf course, a Chinese grocery, and a visitable archeological dig site. Not to mention it's just down the street (3 miles) from the university. And two of the best barbecue places in the city are right around the corner, as is an indoor go kart track. Not to mention it'll be less than a mile from the new light-rail system being installed.

But there was at least one murder on the street within walking distance of where I lived (found out about it on the news), and cars were broken into regularly in my apartment complex's parking lot or had their windshields smashed. Noisy neighbors were common and public transportation was awful. Though just down the street from the university (and the university transit center), it took an hour and a half and two buses to get there. Traffic is nearly always awful, thanks to the narrowing of the main street just to the south (Washington) for light-rail construction.