In the bustling streets of New York City, thousands of pedestrians walk right over a tiny piece of real estate every single day without noticing it. Located at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, there is a mosaic tile embedded directly into the sidewalk.
It measures just 500 square inches (3,225 square centimeters), making it the smallest plot of private land in the entire city. The story behind this triangle involves a massive public works project, a demolished apartment building, and a real estate feud between a landlord and the local government.
The Demolition of the Voorhis Apartment Building
In the 1910s, the municipal government decided to widen Seventh Avenue and expand the IRT subway line. To complete this infrastructure project, the city used eminent domain to claim and demolish nearly three hundred buildings in the area.
One of these targeted structures was the Voorhis, a five-story apartment building owned by a landlord named David Hess. Hess and his family fought the city in court to save their property. They exhausted every legal avenue to stop the demolition, but the government ultimately won the case and tore the building down.
A Microscopic Surveying Error
By 1914, the Voorhis was gone, and the new sidewalk was poured. However, the Hess family soon noticed a crucial detail in the official land surveys. The city had made a surveying error and failed to condemn one microscopic corner of the original Voorhis plot.
This leftover plot was a triangle measuring exactly 25.5 inches (64.8 centimeters) on the base and 27.5 inches (69.8 centimeters) on its two sides. Because this exact spot was excluded from the legal paperwork, the Hess family still legally owned it.
A Firm Refusal to Donate
City officials quickly realized their mistake and sent a notice to the Hess estate. They requested that the family voluntarily donate the tiny triangle to the public so the sidewalk could be unified. Following the loss of their five-story apartment building, the family firmly refused the request.
On July 27, 1922, the Hess estate installed a custom mosaic tile directly over their property. The yellow and black tiles read: “Property of the Hess Estate which has never been dedicated for public purposes.”
A Historic Real Estate Transaction
The Hess family retained ownership of the sidewalk plot until 1938. That year, they finally sold the triangle to the adjacent business, Village Cigars.
The business purchased the microscopic plot for exactly 1,000 dollars, which amounted to 2 dollars per square inch (0.31 dollars per square centimeter). The new owners decided to leave the mosaic tile exactly where it was. The tile remains intact today, sitting directly on the ground outside the cigar shop.