Vermont Square, Los Angeles

Vermont Square as outlined by the Los Angeles Times

Advertisement for tract sales, Los Angeles Herald, 1909, "The largest subdivision ever put on the market in Los Angeles"

Vermont Square is a 2.54-square-mile neighborhood. The neighborhood's street boundaries are Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard on the north, the Harbor Freeway on the east, West 54th Street on the south and South Van Ness Avenue on the west.[1][2]

It is bordered by Exposition Park on the north, Historic South Central on the northeast, South Park on the east, Vermont-Slauson, Harvard Park and Chesterfield Square on the south and Hyde Park and Leimert Park on the west.

A total of 42,284 people lived in Vermont Square's 2.54 square miles, according to the 2000 U.S. census—averaging 17,798 people per square mile, among the highest population densities in the city as a whole. Population was estimated at 47,555 in 2008. The median age was 26, considered young when compared to the city as a whole. The percentages of young residents, aged birth to 18, were among the county's highest.[2]

Within the neighborhood, Latinos made up 58.5% of the population, with black people at 39.2%, whites 1.4%, Asian 1.1%, and other 1.8%. Mexico and El Salvador were the most common places of birth for the 38.5% of the residents who were born abroad, an average percentage of foreign-born when compared with the city or county as a whole.[2]

The $29,904 median household income in 2008 dollars was considered low for the city and county. The percentage of households earning $20,000 or less was high, compared to the county at large. The average household size of 3.4 people was high for the city. Renters occupied 63.2% of the housing units, and homeowners occupied the rest.[2]

In 2000, there were 2,519 families headed by single parents, or 26.7%, a rate that was high for the county and the city.[2]

Vermont Square residents with a four-year college degree amounted to 5.3% of the population aged 25 and older in 2000, which was a low figure when compared with the city and the county at large; the percentage of those residents with less than a high school diploma was high for the county.[2]

Manuel Arts High Logo

LAUSD has 12 schools within Vermont Square. They are:[1][3]

• Manual Arts Senior High School, LAUSD, 4131 South Vermont Avenue, a high school just across the street from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
• Manual Arts Community Adult School, LAUSD, 4131 South Vermont Avenue
• Barack Obama Global Preparatory Charter Academy, LAUSD, 1708 West 46th Street[2][4][5]
• Lou Dantzler Preparatory Charter Middle School, LAUSD, 5029 South Vermont Avenue
• Global Education Academy, LAUSD charter, 4141 South Figueroa Street
• Menlo Avenue Elementary School, LAUSD, 4156 Menlo Avenue
• Normandie Avenue Elementary School, LAUSD, 4506 South Raymond Avenue
• Dr. James Edward Jones Primary Center, LAUSD, 1017 West 47th Street
• Garr Academy of Math and Entrepreneurial Studies, LAUSD charter, 5101 South Western Avenue
• Fifty-Second Street Elementary School, LAUSD, 816 West 51st Street
• Western Avenue Elementary School, LAUSD, 1724 West 53rd Street
• Lou Dantzler Preparatory Charter Elementary School, LAUSD, 1260 West 36th Street

The century-old Vermont Square Branch Library sits in Vermont Square Park.

• 49th Street Park, located at 670 E. 49th Street, features a children's play area and benches.[6]
• Vermont Square Park, located at 1248 West 47th Street, is opposite the Vermont Square branch library.[1][7] It contains barbecue pits, basketball courts, a children's play area and picnic tables.
• The Vermont Square Branch library is located at 1201 W. 48th Street. The oldest branch library in the Los Angeles Public Library system, it was built in 1913 with a grant from Andrew Carnegie and is one of three surviving Carnegie libraries in Los Angeles. It is a designated a Historic-Cultural Monument and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. To direct visitors, there is city-installed signage on Vermont Avenue at 48th Street , on King Boulevard at Budlong Avenue, and on Normandie Avenue at 48th Street.

• Will H. Kindig, City Council member
• Maxine Waters, member of Congress

• Vermont Square crime map and statistics