A friend of mine recently shared this Twitter thread with me. It is by Chaz Hutton. I didn’t know who Chaz was before I read the thread. But I now know that he draws things, sometimes for the New Yorker.

Chaz’s Twitter thread covers the history behind what was once believed to be the smallest plot of land in New York City. He also positions the story as the “perfect embodiment of New York’s attitude.” Guess what the means.

The story is about the isosceles triangle pictured above, measuring 25-1/2″ at its base and 27-1/2″ along its sides. It is known as the Hess triangle and it reads: “Property of the Hess Estate which has never been dedicated for public purposes.“

Click here for the full story.

Image: Chaz Hutton

One of the small things that I liked about living in Philadelphia was the rational way in which street addresses tended to work.

Here’s an example. 

Let’s say you wanted to go to Brooks Brothers in Center City and you discovered that the address was 1513 Walnut Street (which it is). 

By looking at the first two numbers, you would immediately know that the store sits between 15th Street and 16th Street on Walnut.

If the address you were given was 1601 Walnut Street, you would know that your destination is now between 16th Street and 17th Street, but probably right at 16th.

You would also know that the numbered streets run north-south and the streets named after trees run east-west. (Of course, not all of the east-west streets are named after trees.)

No need to pull up the Google machine.

All of this stems from William Penn’s incredibly rational 17th century grid plan for the city – one of the first examples in North America.

If you’re interested in grids, you may also enjoy this post from last year: The spatiotemporal hierarchy of urban form.

Photo by Jay Dantinne on Unsplash