An oddball, ribbon-thin bit of earth, located smack in the middle of a block of homes, is up for grabs in Murray Hill, Queens.
The perplexing property, only 3 feet wide and 500 feet long, has no direct access to the street. Even stranger, neither the odd shape nor the head scratch-worthy locale are that unusual in New York City.
“There are interior lots that are oddly shaped and go through people’s backyards, and those people don’t even know,” Joey Kara Koch, deputy commissioner for asset management for the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, charged with selling the lot, told the New York Times.
While vacant lots in much of New York City can sell for upwards of $14 million, these wonky bits of land tend to go for a small bit of money, sometimes as low as $1 or $5 per square foot. Many wind up sold at auction, but some enter a city program for “slivers, access ways and interior lots” — or SAIL Away program — if appraised and found to be essentially worthless.
Would a neighbor perhaps opt to pick up the narrow bit of of land?
“Well, I guess it depends,” Billy Copperill, a retired New York City police officer who has lived in a home abutting the property for 40 years, told the Times. “I could be coerced at a real low price, I mean, real low.” [NYT] — Julie Strickland