In July 1904, the Los Angeles Evening Express reported the sale of a sixty acre tract known as Arlington Heights for the price of $75,000.

[2] In 1910, the Arlington Heights Improvement Association announced that they spent $16,000 to purchase 10 lots (between Washington and Eighteenth Street) to put up a school that would cost an additional $25,000.

[3] In February 1988, Mount Vernon Junior High was considering an expansion that would have torn down 29 homes in the neighborhood.

Homeowners said that they still planned to seek historic status for their homes to prevent future condemnation should the district change position.

[8][9] The following statistics apply only to the area defined by the Los Angeles Times Mapping L.A. project: The 2000 U.S. census counted 22,096 residents in the 1.03-square-mile neighborhood—an average of 21,423 people per square mile, among the highest population densities in the county.

Mexico (34,9%) and El Salvador (20.2%) were the most common places of birth for the 49.8% of the residents who were born abroad, a figure that was considered high in comparison with foreign-born in the city as a whole.

The census found 1,165 families headed by single parents, the 23.5% rate being considered high for both the city and the county.