San Pablo Park

I held my son's 3rd birthday party at San Pablo Park in south Berkeley, and now all his preschool classmates' parents are doing it, LOL (slight exaggeration). It's a great spot. Big, grassy, sunny, street parking, wonderful play area with soft surface for the littles that has a fence, picnic tables, a separate play area for the biggers as well. You can reserve spots with the City of Berkeley, and I don't think there's a cost. There's no ball pit, but it's a great spot for a jumpy house. Have fun!

I had a wonderful experience with my crawling infant at San Pablo Park in Berkeley where there is wide open grassy fields as well as a nice toddler playground for when she’s older.

Totland in Berkeley is all fenced in and has a sandpit. We spent a lot of time there when the kids were younger.

Also, we used to live near San Pablo park and there is also a fenced-in area there.  It is often empty in case you're worried about other children bowling over the young one.

Finally, live oak park has an even smaller fenced-in area.  That's a good one too.

Hi, we live one block outside the area you described (on Mathews between Ward and Derby) and we are very comfortable in this neighborhood.  We have two kids under 5 who play out on the block and in San Pablo park regularly, we ride our bikes everywhere and we feel safe doing so.  There are a ton a families with young kids in the neighborhood and it feels like a pretty cohesive community.  Having said that, there there are some property crimes in the neighborhood and the two murders that occurred in Berkeley this year happened in this part of the city--San Pablo park seems to be a magnet for these incidents.  We love living here, get together regularly with our neighbors, and do not feel unsafe in any way in our daily lives.  But your feelings of safety will depend on your personal comfort level living in and dealing with a gentrifying neighborhood.