History of Arlington Heights

Arlington Heights Historic Districts

Arlington Heights contains one of central Los Angeles’s notable concentrations of early-20th-century residential architecture. SurveyLA identified multiple eligible historic districts within the broader planning district, including Central Arlington Heights, the Arlington Heights Streetcar Residential Historic District, Pico Boulevard Streetcar Commercial Historic District, Bronson Avenue Courtyard Apartments, Arlington Palms and several others. Craftsman, American Foursquare, Spanish Colonial Revival and Mediterranean Revival buildings help tell the story of a neighborhood shaped by streetcar-era growth.

Address: Los Angeles, CA

Official website

Washington Square Shopping Center

Washington Square is a longstanding neighborhood shopping center on Washington Boulevard. Historical documentation shows it was developed as an automobile-oriented community shopping center with a supermarket, drug store, bank, department store and smaller neighborhood services. It remains a commercial anchor in Arlington Heights today. The neighborhood association has also documented new tenant activity at the center, making Washington Square useful both as a shopping destination and as a piece of the neighborhood’s postwar commercial history.

Address: 4040 W Washington Blvd, Los Angeles, CA

Pico Boulevard Streetcar Commercial Historic District

This SurveyLA-identified historic district follows the south side of Pico Boulevard between Arlington Avenue and 6th Avenue. Its roughly 20 one- and two-story commercial buildings preserve a rare stretch of development associated with the former Pico Heights streetcar line. Spanish Colonial Revival and Italian Renaissance Revival details appear along a continuous street wall, while storefronts open directly to the sidewalk. It is one of the clearest places in Arlington Heights to see how Los Angeles commercial streets looked before automobile-oriented development reshaped the city.

Address: Pico Blvd between Arlington Ave and 6th Ave, Los Angeles, CA

Official website

Original Washington Irving Branch Library

Built in 1926, the original Washington Irving Branch is one of Arlington Heights’ most important surviving civic buildings. Designed by Allison & Allison in a Mediterranean/Romanesque Revival vocabulary, it served the neighborhood for decades before a larger replacement branch opened on Washington Boulevard in 2000. The building was designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 307 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987 as part of the Los Angeles Branch Library System group.

Address: 1802 S Arlington Ave, Los Angeles, CA

Catch One

The venue at 4067 W Pico Boulevard carries one of Arlington Heights’ most significant nightlife legacies. Opened in 1973 as Jewel’s Catch One, it became a landmark Black LGBTQ+ disco and an important gathering place in Los Angeles nightlife history. The property later continued as a broader music and events venue. Its importance goes beyond a night out: Catch One belongs in both the neighborhood’s nightlife and history coverage because the address connects Arlington Heights to a major chapter in Black and LGBTQ+ cultural life in Los Angeles.

Address: 4067 W Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, CA

Central Arlington Heights West Historic District

Central Arlington Heights West is a SurveyLA-identified residential historic district that preserves a strong collection of early-20th-century houses. City historic-resource records document Craftsman-era contributors here, including homes dating to the 1910s. The district helps make Arlington Heights especially rewarding on foot: rather than relying on a single landmark, visitors can read the neighborhood’s development through intact blocks of period houses, porches, rooflines and setbacks that survive from Los Angeles’s streetcar-era expansion.

Address: Los Angeles, CA