Hess triangle

Common card · No. 323498

The Hess triangle is a triangular, 500-square-inch (0.32 m2) plot of private land surrounded by a public sidewalk at the corner of Seventh Avenue South and Christopher Street in the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The plot is an isosceles triangle covered by a mosaic plaque that reads: PROPERTY OF THE HESS ESTATE WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN DEDICATED FOR PUBLIC PURPOSES The Hess triangle is the result of a dispute between the city government and the estate of David Hess, a landlord from Philadelphia who owned the Voorhis, a five-story apartment building. In the early 1910s, the city claimed eminent domain to acquire and demolish 253 buildings in the area in order to widen Seventh Avenue and expand the IRT subway. By 1913, the Hess family had exhausted all legal options. However, according to Ross Duff Wyttock writing in the Hartford Courant in 1928, Hess's heirs identified that a small corner of Plot 55 had been excluded during the city’s seizure of the Voorhis property...

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