The Stubborn "Nail Houses" That Refuse to Get Demolished
In 1914, the government of New York City took ownership of a Manhattan apartment building belonging to one David Hess. The city used a legal power called eminent domain, allowing governments to seize private property for public use—in this case they wanted to expand the subway system. Hess fought them and lost, and when all was said and done, his building was torn down, and he was left with a triangle shaped piece of property. It was about the size of a large slice of pizza.
Later, the city tried to get him to donate his pizza-shaped property so that they could build a sidewalk. He refused again. They built the sidewalk anyway, and in the middle of the sidewalk is Hess's triangle, with a tile mosaic that reads: "Property of the Hess Estate Which Has Never Been Dedicated For Public Purposes."
People such as David Hess, who refuse to sell their properties, are called holdouts. Eminent domain generally only comes into play when the government wants private property for public use (though there have been some exceptions). If it's a private development that wants your place and you refuse to sell, there's often not much they can do. In China, where there's been development boom in recent years, they call their holdout houses "nail houses."
Now the story starts getting really interesting. You will enjoy this I'm sure 
Around 2005, a Seattle neighborhood called Ballard started to see unprecedented growth. Condominiums and apartment buildings were sprouting up all over the community which had once been mostly single family homes and small businesses. Around this time, developers offered a woman named Edith Macefield $750,000 dollars for her small house, which was appraised at around $120,000. They wanted to build a shopping mall on the block where Macefield had lived for the last 50 years.
http://gizmodo.com/the-stubborn-nail-houses-that-refuse-to-get-demolishe-1631053177
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Looking forward to reading it!
