Gávea is definitely rougher around the edges than Leblon is. It's less touristic, so I suppose there's no reason for the glitz of Leblon. I remember walking through Gávea a couple times last summer and always being afraid of getting robbed, since at first glance the neighborhood looks a little sketchy to naïve American eyes. As it turns out, though, I feel just as safe in Gávea as I did in Leblon. The typical profile of a thief in Rio is a poor, darker-skinned (sounds bad, but it's true - there's a pretty direct relationship between skin color and class in Brazil) adolescent or early-twenties male (after that they literally die off in gang-motivated murders - an oft-quoted statistic is the fact that for males, Rio has a mortality rate equal to that of war zones) in well-worn clothing who is often slightly dirt-covered. These favela and street kids are easy to pick out, especially against the usual well-dressed, lighter-skinned crowd of the Zona Sul, and they're rare around Gávea.
That's the good part about Rio's absurd amount of robberies - at least it's easy to define who to watch out for. Granted, there are always exceptions, but it's nice to have a general idea. In Argentina and Uruguay I was always the slightest bit uneasy since thieves there blend in more. Apparently in Buenos Aires one tactic is for thieves to dress up as businessmen and then rob the unsuspecting people around them. I'd take Rio's easily-identifiable thieves any day. Of course, it's also necessary to note that there are many honest, law-abiding citizens who also fit that profile. In fact, most people who live in favelas are completely honest and simply live there for the cheaper housing. The illegal actions of a few have given a bad reputation to the term "favela" in general, both internationally and within Brazil and even Rio itself, which is really unfortunate.
So anyway, Gávea is safer than I expected. I love that I'm only a ten minute walk from PUC - I'm saving a ton on bus fares! I most appreciate this when I'm walking home at night. The traffic in my area is horrible during rush hour, and at times I can walk almost two blocks during a red light, without the traffic moving at all. I'm nearly home while everyone else is still stuck in their motionless cars.
As it turns out, I'm also wonderfully near two popular PUC hangouts. There's a bar called Seu Pires which is right across PUC and several blocks from my house. The bar itself is tiny, but the area around it gets really crowded at night. Students spill out on the street, angering drivers and occasionally causing the police to come by with their sirens on to force students to move back. On Thursday nights, students move from Seu Pires to another bar called Baixo Gávea, which is about a block from my house. There are actually several bars around there, though Baixo Gávea is definitely the most famous. People stay there til long past midnight, but still I feel safe enough to walk that block back to my apartment alone. Definitely on my guard, but alone. I love the convenience of it.
my apartment 
what I see walking to school every day! 
Rio has tons of cool grafitti along the streets...I think it brings color and life to otherwise drab walls 
more cool grafitti 
the neighbhorhood playground 
Cristo Redentor watching over Gávea 
Santos Dumont Plaza, a parklike area about a block from my apartment 
there's a reason I call this place paradise... 
Seu Pires Bar
a typical Thursday night 
looks pretty boring, but this place gets packed with students on Thursdays, since it's the area near Baixo Gávea 
the Zona Sul supermarket, just a few hundred meters from my apartmentlike many/most stores in Rio, the sides are open and there are no doors to go through
neighborhood gas station - in Brazil, it's illegal to fill up your own car; an attendent has to do it for you 
Shopping da Gávea, the neighborhood shopping mall 
along the "main street" 
along the "main street" 
Neighborhood Church #1 
Neighborhood Church #2, right across from the Catholic one 
along the "main street" 
a distant favela (Rocinha, perhaps?) on the hills in the background that's visible from Gávea 
natural beauty at its finest
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