The neighborhood has grown up on a winding hilly triangular-shaped area of land known as the Sítio Tapanhoin, bounded on its three sides by the Caminho do Mar highway to the port of Santos and the Lavapés and Cambuci rivers.

For recreation, there was the wood, a canoeing lake created by damming the streams running through the area, the city's first zoo, complete with bears, lions, monkeys, elephants, jaguars and other animals, as well as a dance hall, a skating rink, fairground stalls, an aquarium, and an amusement park.

In 1938, hearing that they were having difficulty keeping up with the cost of maintaining the Jardim da Aclimação and planning to build on it, the Mayor of São Paulo, Prestes Maia, offered to purchase the property from them.

Paradoxically, rather than signaling the rebirth of the Jardim da Aclimação, the purchase spelled out the definitive end for most of its attractions and the beginning of a long period of alternating neglect and revival for the green open space.

In 1916, again reflecting the irregular contours of the area, a series of roads were built in a semicircular arc off the Avenida da Aclimação and converging on the Largo Rodrigues Alves, the present Praça General Polidoro.

It was not until 1928 that the maps show an increasing number of buildings appearing on the Morro da Aclimação between the Rua Jurubatuba (now Avenida Armando Ferrentini) and the Vila Mariana cemetery.

[4][5] The "property boom" has put pressure on transport facilities and resulted in the disappearance of the features that gave the neighborhood its former character including the semi-detached houses and the old multi-storey homes.

[3] The area has also undergone a socio-economic transformation, from a middle-class to an upper-middle-class neighborhood,[3] as it has become an increasingly sought-after place to live[6][7] Aclimação is a stronghold of São Paulo's South Korean community.