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I've just read an article on one of the overseas BBC pages that seems perversely inaccessible to those within the UK, but for those with other means it is here:
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20190314-new-yorks-cheeky-symbol-of-defiance
Fortunately, Wikipedia has an article and some photographs:
Hess triangle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Hess triangle is a triangular tile mosaic set in a sidewalk in New York City's West Village neighborhood at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Christopher Street. The plaque reads "Property of the Hess Estate which has never been dedicated for public purposes." The plaque is an isosceles triangle, with a 25 1⁄2-inch (65 cm) base and 27 1⁄2-inch (70 cm) 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 to expropriate and demolish 253 buildings in the area in order to widen Seventh Avenue and expand the IRT subway. By 1913, however, the Hess family had exhausted all legal options. According to Ross Duff Wyttock, writing in the Hartford Courant in 1928, Hess's heirs discovered that, when the city seized the Voorhis, the survey had missed this 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 holdout 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 for US$1,000 (equivalent to $17,799 in 2018), or approximately $2 per square inch (Another source lists the sales price as US$100 (equivalent to $1,780 in 2018). The new owners left the plaque in place and, as of 2019, it remains.
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20190314-new-yorks-cheeky-symbol-of-defiance
Fortunately, Wikipedia has an article and some photographs:
Hess triangle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Hess triangle is a triangular tile mosaic set in a sidewalk in New York City's West Village neighborhood at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Christopher Street. The plaque reads "Property of the Hess Estate which has never been dedicated for public purposes." The plaque is an isosceles triangle, with a 25 1⁄2-inch (65 cm) base and 27 1⁄2-inch (70 cm) 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 to expropriate and demolish 253 buildings in the area in order to widen Seventh Avenue and expand the IRT subway. By 1913, however, the Hess family had exhausted all legal options. According to Ross Duff Wyttock, writing in the Hartford Courant in 1928, Hess's heirs discovered that, when the city seized the Voorhis, the survey had missed this 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 holdout 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 for US$1,000 (equivalent to $17,799 in 2018), or approximately $2 per square inch (Another source lists the sales price as US$100 (equivalent to $1,780 in 2018). The new owners left the plaque in place and, as of 2019, it remains.