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As the Big Apple, New York City is home to a lot of big things: big buildings, big billboards,
big balloons, a big mayor, a big dumpster fire, and a big green statue of Owen Wilson
in a tiara.
On the other hand, it’s also home to a lot of small things: small apartments, small bodegas,
a small ex-mayor, small hands, and, most importantly, a very small, very spiteful mosaic called
the Hess Triangle: the smallest piece of private property in New York City.
You see, back in 1913, people in New York were all like “Gee willikers, I sure do
love not being at war with Germany, something that I bet will last forever!
Now leave me alone, I need to smoke cocaine to cure my toothache!”
But also they were all like “You know how Seventh Avenue stops at 11th street?
What if it, like, didn’t?”
And so the city decided that it, like, wouldn’t, and began plans to extend Seventh Avenue through
Greenwich Village down to Varick Street.
The project also included extending the subway line that runs below 7th avenue, which is
now called the 1, in recognition of its place as the third best subway, after the 7 and
the one with the world’s second-creepiest-looking Jared.
Now, New York City is, of course, organized in a grid system, which keeps its streets
easily navigable and its street names deeply uncreative.
But that grid doesn’t really become griddy until you get north of 14th street, as that’s
when the 1811 Commissioners’ Plan—which laid out the grid—began.
By that point, Lower Manhattan had already been developed, starting with the Dutch settlement
of New Amsterdam in the 1620s, meaning the area below 14th street is less of a grid and
more of a handful of wet spaghetti that someone threw at a map.
That’s all to say that in 1913, when the city decided to extend Seventh Avenue, Greenwich
Village looked like this.
This lot, lot 55, was home to an apartment building owned by a man named David Hess.
Records differ slightly on what his building was called: it was either the Voorhis, the
Voorhees, the Vorhes, or the Dimmsdale Dimmadome, but whatever you call it, it was definitely
doomed.
That’s because the Seventh Avenue extension was going to run thorough here, which meant
that all of these buildings couldn’t exist anymore, because 9 of 10 dentists agree that
you can’t have buildings on roads—and so, the New York government used eminent domain
to #yeet—as the kids might say—11 blocks worth of thicc property, which included Hess’
beloved Voorhes, which made him big mad.
And that’s on periodt.
Hess did everything he could to save his apartment complex: he refused to sell, he filed lawsuits,
he tied a bunch of multicolored balloons to the top of it, but in the end he was no match
for the city government.
By 1916, when the Seventh Avenue extension was completed, the new lots at 7th Avenue
and Christopher St. looked like this: Lots 51 and 52 were mostly intact, lot 53 was cut
in about half, lot 54 lost about two-thirds, and lot 55 was gone… or was it?
Half as Interesting CSI, can we enhance that image?
Enhance more… more… more… bingo.
It turns out, due to an error by the city, about 3.5 square feet, or a third of a square
meter, of lot 55 was left intact, and still in David Hess’ ownership.
When they realized their mistake, the city asked Hess to donate the plot to be used as
part of the sidewalk, and they probably figured he’d say yes, because after all, what was
he going to do with such a small slice of New York City land?
Build a dive bar for pigeons?
A slightly-below average sized West Village apartment?
A spiteful tile mosaic whose sole purpose is to give a massive middle finger to the
city of New York?
Yes, that’s exactly what he did.
The mosaic, which still stands today, reads as follows: wait, that's wrong, it says “Property
of the Hess Estate, which has never been dedicated for public purposes.”
Technically, though, the plaque is wrong: the land is no longer property of the Hess
Estate, who sold it in 1938 to the owners the Village Cigar Store next door for $100,
who later sold it to Yeshiva University, who eventually sold it to a realty corporation
located at 70 Christopher Street, which was named after the 70 Christopher Realty Corporation.
Technically, the Hess Triangle was absorbed by lot 54 sometime in the 1930’s—but functionally,
it remains independent, with not even a realty corporation daring to remove this powerful,
stirring testament to the spiteful pettiness that makes New York City so special.
Speaking of spiteful pettiness, let’s talk about the YouTube algorithm: it determines
how well a video does, but it doesn’t always line up with the types of videos I want to
make, and that I think my audience would most enjoy.
That’s why me and my other educational Youtuber friends came together to make Nebula, a video
platform where we don’t have to worry about demonetization, or the algorithm, or video
length: all we have to worry about is making great content.
Plus, there are Nebula Originals, like Showmakers, my podcast with Brian from Real Engineering
where we interview other creators such as Polymatter or Suibhne, which you can only
get on Nebula.
The best way to get access to Nebula is with the CuriosityStream bundle.
CuriosityStream is a fantastic streaming service with thousands of top-quality documentaries,
from people like Jane Goodall, Chris Hadfield, and David Attenborough, and they’ve partnered
with us at Nebula to offer a deal: when you sign up for CuriosityStream, you get a free
annual subscription to Nebula, and right now it’s only $15 for the whole year.
You can get that bundle by going to curiositystream.com/HAI.