City of Syracuse v. Cook

Headnote

City of Syracuse v. Cook, 187 App. Div. 578 , affirmed.

Appeal, by permission, from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the fourth judicial department, entered May 16, 1919, unanimously affirming a judgment in favor of defendants entered upon a dismissal of the complaint by the court on trial at Special Term. By the action, the plaintiff sought to have removed, as an alleged street encroachment, twenty-nine feet in depth of a six-story stone and brick building extending along the west fine of South Safina street, in the city of Syracuse, N. Y., a distance of one hundred and ninety-six feet. The complaint alleged that South Safina street at the point in question was, and for more than one hundred years had been, a public street ninety-nine feet in width; that the fee thereof was in the plaintiff or in the People, and that the plaintiff held the same in trust for the general public; and that the defendant Florence Wright Cook asserted and claimed title to the

west twenty-nine feet of said street and had incumbered the same with buildings and structures. The answer admitted that she claimed title to said twenty-nine feet and that there were permanent buildings and structures thereon, and denied all of the other allegations in said complaint set forth; and, amongst other things alleged that during all the time set forth in the complaint, said street has been and still is not exceeding seventy feet in width at said point. The Appellate Division held that the bounds of the highway now known as Salina street never included the premises in question.