The Hess triangle is a triangular tile

mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

set in a sidewalk in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

West Village The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The traditional boundaries of the West Village are the Hudson River to the west, West 14th Street to t ...

neighborhood at the corner of Seventh Avenue and

Christopher Street Christopher Street is a street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the continuation of 9th Street west of Sixth Avenue. It is most notable for the Stonewall Inn, which is located on Christophe ...

. The plaque reads "Property of the Hess Estate which has never been dedicated for public purposes." The plaque is an

isosceles triangle In geometry, an isosceles triangle () is a triangle that has two sides of equal length. Sometimes it is specified as having ''exactly'' two sides of equal length, and sometimes as having ''at least'' two sides of equal length, the latter versio ...

, with a base and legs (sides). The plaque 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 Eminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase/acquisition (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Austr ...

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 The ''Hartford Courant'' is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is considered to be the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. A morning newspaper serving most of the state north of New H ...

'' in 1928, Hess's heirs discovered that when the city seized the Voorhis the survey had missed a small corner of Plot 55 and they set up a notice of possession. The city asked the family to donate the diminutive property to the public, but they chose to

hold out ''Hold Out'' is the sixth album by American singer-songwriter Jackson Browne, released in 1980 (see 1980 in music). Although critically the album has not been as well received as other Browne recordings, it remains his only album to date to reac ...

and installed the present, defiant mosaic on July 27, 1922. In 1938 the property, reported to be the smallest plot in New York City, was sold to the adjacent Village Cigars store (United Cigars at that time) for . Later,

Yeshiva University Yeshiva University is a private Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City."About YU
on the Yeshiva Universi ...

came to own the property, including the Hess Triangle, and in October 1995 it was sold by Yeshiva to 70 Christopher Realty Corporation. Subsequent owners have left the plaque intact. The triangle and Village Cigars shop behind it were placed on sale in 2021.

References

{{coord, 40.733513, -74.003067, display=title Christopher Street West Village Individual signs in the United States 1922 establishments in New York City Triangles 20th century in New York City Real estate holdout