One of 17 spaces on a Monopoly board: Abbr.

As a detective, I first considered the given clue – “One of 17 spaces on a Monopoly board: Abbr.” – and tried to recall the layout of a Monopoly board. I knew it had various spaces like properties, railroads, utilities, and community chest, among others. However, none of them fit the criteria of being a three-letter word. Then, I observed that the word ‘Abbr.’ displaced after the colon was short for abbreviation. Thus, the answer had to be an abbreviation, and a three-letter abbreviation at that.

I then remembered that some of the spaces on the Monopoly board are abbreviated with three letters, such as ‘Jail’ (JAI) and ‘Go’ (GO). However, neither of these fit the clue because they were not among the 17 spaces on the board. So, I took a more in-depth look at the board again and noticed that there were four railway spaces on the board abbreviated as ‘RR,’ two utility spaces abbreviated as ‘UT,’ and 11 property spaces abbreviated as two-letter combinations. None of them also fit the clue.

Then, it struck me that there was one more set of spaces on the board with three-letter abbreviations – the four spaces that had ‘AVE’ in them, namely ‘St. James Place,’ ‘New York Avenue,’ ‘Tennessee Avenue,’ and ‘Kentucky Avenue.’ Each of these spaces had ‘AVE’ in their abbreviated form – STP for St. James Place, NYA for New York Avenue, TNA for Tennessee Avenue, and KYA for Kentucky Avenue. This discovery led me to the conclusion that the answer to the crossword clue was ‘AVE.’

Overall, solving the mystery of the crossword clue required a combination of analytical skills, knowledge of Monopoly board spaces, and attentiveness to small clues like ‘Abbr.’ and the number 17.