What is the word for the strip of land in front of your house between the sidewalk and the street?

the "city strip"

We (in Kansas) called that strip the "parking" or the "parkway."

"Parkway" here is a road. The most famous of which is the Robert Moses Parkway in Niagara Falls.

There is the old joke: "Why do we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway?"

In the midwest we call it a parkway, too.

All of the little boys I knew in my childhood in Galena, Kansas played (gambled, really) with marbles. At that time -- the Thirties and Forties -- in that town, marbles were universally called "doogies."

Did you guys play with marbles? What did you call them (besides "marbles")?

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Originally posted by Morgan:
What is the word for the strip of land in front of your house between the sidewalk and the street?

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Planting strip.

Tinman

I believe I'd call it a verge

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I believe I'd call it a verge

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Or perhaps grass verge.

Only if it's laid to lawn

I called the different types of marble allies, cats-eyes, chinas, tiddlers and probably some names I've forgotten.

My Dad called them plonkers and somewhere you got taws.

Going back to the original thread, are you referring to parking spaces, the gutter or the kerb?

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Going back to the original thread, are you referring to parking spaces, the gutter or the kerb?

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I am referring to the grassy area between the sidewalk and the curb in front of a home. Here, it is only used as a place to plant a tree, and to place your garbage and recycling bins. Also as a place for the snowplows to pile up the snow from the street, and me to pile up the snow from the sidewalk I have to keep clear during the winter. We would never dream of parking on it.

I know here, in New York State, my lot, that is the property I own, is measured to the middle of the road. I own right to the middle of the road, yet I am not allowed to do anything to that area. Sometimes I dream of putting in speed bumps to slow down the speeding cars that pass my house!

Funny, Morgan, because here in Illinois we're told the city owns the parkway; yet, who ends up mowing it? Keeping the grass fertilized? Etc.? You guessed it!

I just know verge as meaning edge, but Ros and arnie both used it in their responses, so I decided to look it up in M-W. See 2 a (3). 1 c is a new meaning to me.

Main Entry: verge
Pronunciation: 'v&rj
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin virga rod, stripe
Date: 15th century

1 a (1) : a rod or staff carried as an emblem of authority or symbol of office

(2) obsolete : a stick or wand held by a person being admitted to tenancy while he swears fealty

b : the spindle of a watch balance; especially : a spindle with pallets in an old vertical escapement

c : the male intromittent organ of any of various invertebrates

2 a : something that borders, limits, or bounds: as

(1) : an outer margin of an object or structural part

(2) : the edge of roof covering (as tiling) projecting over the gable of a roof

(3) British : a paved or planted strip of land at the edge of a road : SHOULDER

b : BRINK, THRESHOLD <a country on the verge of destruction -- Archibald MacLeish>

Tinman

Or perhaps grass verge.

c: The male intromittant organ of...invertabrates.

So, if you have a French bug in your parking strip, and she has yet to breed, you have a grass vierge?

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Morgan: I know here, in New York State, my lot, that is the property I own, is measured to the middle of the road. I own right to the middle of the road, yet I am not allowed to do anything to that area.

Kalleh: Funny, Morgan, because here in Illinois we're told the city owns the parkway

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Speaking as a lawyer:¹ The difference arises because a public street can be created in two ways.

A subdivision-developer puts in the public records a map, showing the exact location of the lots and the internal streets he is creating. (And only in a subdivision can you speak of a "lot", rather than a "parcel of land.") Nowadays this is the most common method to create and dedicate a public street. Alternately, streets can be created without a plat, by "common-law dedication," simply by common and accepted use with the landowner's permission. That was more common in the older days; in my part of the country only older major streets were created that way.

The difference: the public owns a road created by a plat, but the public has only a right to travel along a road created by common-law dedication. In the latter case, the landowner may use that land in any way not inconsistent with public travel. He may for example build a bridge across the road, if it is high enough not to impede ordinary traffic.

True and major story: in the late 1970's, in the very heart of Chicago's downtown, our largest bank wanted to build a pedestrian bridge over Madison Avenue connecting to its offices in the building across the street. (The point was to make the two the "same" bank for purposes of a law which, to protect small banks from competition, limited the number of branches a bank may have.) The city tried to extract its pound of flesh, of course, noting that it owned the street, which had been created by plat in the 1830's, the very earliest days of Chicago. However, a clever young lawyer at the bank (not me) found that that 1830's plat had minor technical defects (for example, some signatures were not notarized by an Illinois notary) and for those defects an 1840's court had invalidated the plat. The result was the street existed not by plat but only by statutory dedication – and hence the city did not "own" it, and the bank had a perfect right to build in the air above it.

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¹These comments limited to Illinois law, to avoid any thought that I'm practicing law in a jurisdiction in which I'm not licensed!

At a picnic yesterday, I asked various folks what a parkway meant to them, and after that, what was the name of the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the curb in front of their house.

Everyone I asked, all from the Buffalo area I might add, said that a Parkway is a road with a strip of land, usually grassy, between the two lanes! Now I hadn't thought of that before, and when they started pointing out the different examples of the roadways around here that are named "Parkway", I had to agree with them.

On the second question, we had various answers. Most said "easement" or "right-of-way", but all agreed that there is another word for it..."and it's on the tip of my tongue....I'll call you at 3:00 am when I think of it!"

Well, no phone calls so far, so, I am still looking for that word that is on the tip of everyone's tongue!