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N. East St., BdWL, 1960

This is my first stamp from the north side, so it’s a shame that it’s nothing too remarkable. It’s on the east side of North East Street between Gier and Call Streets. We’ve seen plenty of BdWL stamps before, and I am no wiser about what that stands for and who it is. I was here today checking out the going-out-of-business sale of Vet’s Too; the owner is retiring.

Vet’s Too is next door to, and shares a parking lot with, Vet’s Ace Hardware, widely regarded as the best hardware store in town. I admit I sometimes call it the “scary hardware store” not because it’s bad but because it’s too good. It’s crammed floor-to-ceiling with the greatest variety of hardware I’ve ever seen, and the effect is overwhelming.

Looking north toward Vet’s, with the stamp in the second-from-front block.

Vet’s Too is a boutique of clothes, jewelry, decor, and gifts, and I had never been in it before. The wonderful glass block windows give the building a distinctive 1950s appearance, despite the unfortunately drab gray paint. It was certainly here when the BdWL stamp was placed (the online property records say it was built in 1952), but I don’t know what it was. My searches are strangely failing to come up with references to the address before 1972.

This north-facing door is the main entrance to Vet’s Too, but it looks like it might not have been the original main entrance.

By 1972 it was an X-rated theater called the Pussycat Theater. (I learned in the course of this that Pussycat Theater was a very common name for such movie houses in the 1970s, including a famous California chain.) Ads for the theater continue to appear in the Lansing State Journal until at least 1985, but I am not sure when it closed. I did find some forum chatter with someone’s recollections suggesting it closed between 1997 and 2001.

On the left is the west-facing door. The corner-cut really looks like a door should be there, but it’s just a window.

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Eureka St., DPW, 1945

This “Type 2” DPW stamp is on the south side of Eureka Street just west of Pennsylvania. It’s in front of a really handsome 1906 Dutch Colonial house.

You’ll have to take my word for it about the handsome house. I am reluctant to be too obviously pointing a camera at someone’s house when I’m wandering around outside at 11 at night.
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S. Howard St., S & N Contractors, 2000

As a followup to yesterday’s entry, I decided to head around the corner past Dagwood’s and walk the blocks of South Howard Street. I knew that the sidewalk was incomprehensibly intermittent there, and thought it would be interesting to capture a stamp from this strange liminal zone.

Disappointingly, I didn’t find a single stamp until I just about got to the southwest corner of Michigan and Howard. The stamp is just south of the corner. So here you go: the only sidewalk stamp on South Howard is this S & N Contractors stamp from 2000.

The remarkable scarcity of stamps led me to wonder if Lansing Township lacks a sidewalk marking requirement. It would be in keeping with its slapdash approach to sidewalks. It turns out, however, that they do have a sidewalk marking requirement:

All concrete walks and approaches shall have the name of the contractor constructing the walk, together with the year same is constructed, stamped in the surface of the walk near each end thereof, and at least once in the surface of each approach.

Section 21-3.8, Lansing Township Municipal Code

I saw one short section of new-looking sidewalk on Howard that should therefore be in the Hall of Shame.

Facing northeast into the intersection of Michigan and Howard. The stamp is on the nearest sidewalk.

The property adjacent to this stamp is currently just a big, empty, somewhat overgrown parking lot. It’s owned by the bus company Indian Trails and they use it to park the Michigan Flyer airport bus, which seems like an underutilization of the space. Prior to becoming bus parking, it was a car lot, the name of which I can’t remember if I ever knew. Going further back, I see Lansing State Journal advertisements for the Lansing Overhead Door Company at that address. It was there at least as early as 1935 and as late as 1978. The first mention I can find of a new address for Overhead Door is in 1981, by which time they had moved to East M-78, and there they remain today.

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E. Michigan Ave., Fessler & Bowman, 2016

This isn’t a unique or especially interesting stamp, but at least I got a moody photo for you. I went for a walk in light rain since it didn’t look likely to let up before bedtime. It actually ended up being pretty pleasant, with a little help from an umbrella. Anyway, this stamp is on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Holmes and Bingham, in front of Sparrow Urgent Care.

The date on the stamp corresponds with when this building was constructed. It’s part of the shiny new Cancer Center complex, which caused the demolition of Bingham School, as discussed in my entry on another Fessler & Bowman stamp. Fessler & Bowman were evidently involved in the construction.

I find it very peaceful to walk in downtown Lansing late in the evening.
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E. Kalamazoo St., Eastlund Concrete, 2002

This one is on my list of mysteries and oddities. It’s a curb cut at the northwest corner of East Kalamazoo and South Howard Streets, next to the parking lot for Dagwood’s Tavern, and it has no reason to exist.

.

Kalamazoo has no sidewalk at this point; its sidewalk mostly disappears after it crosses into the wilds of Lansing Township. The sidewalk on Howard appears and disappears with no discernible pattern, but at this point there is also none. So the curb cut is out there on its own, facing the busy intersection of Kalamazoo and Howard. It doesn’t even give access to Dagwood’s parking lot, since the corner of the lot has a metal barrier directly adjoining the curb cut.

The curb cut faces southeast across the intersection. That’s the on-ramp to 127 and 496 up ahead. There is a bit of asphalt around and to the north of the curb cut, probably just some overlap from the parking lot, but no sidewalk.

It would make sense, I suppose, for a curb cut to be installed (perhaps while doing other work on the curb or road nearby) if it was part of an intention to someday get around to putting in a sidewalk. But there just isn’t somewhere for a sidewalk to go, not unless Lansing Township makes Dagwood’s give up part of their parking lot. And to the best of my recollection, the barrier at the edge of the lot has always been there as long as I’ve been going to Dagwood’s, which means it pre-dates the curb cut.

Another view to show that the curb cut absurdly points directly at the corner of the parking lot barrier.
And here’s Dagwood’s, in case you’re somehow not familiar. I’m standing on the curb cut and facing west while taking this.

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Mifflin Ave., Cantu & Sons, 1987

This stamp is on the west side of Mifflin Avenue between Michigan and Prospect. It could only be on the west side; the east side of Mifflin Avenue has no sidewalk, even though there are residences on both sides. There is (I believe) a clear explanation for this: the border between the city of Lansing and Lansing Township runs down the center of the street. I have observed that Lansing typically installs a sidewalk on any block that has residences. Lansing Township is largely uninterested in sidewalks.

Mifflin Avenue doesn’t serve as the shining example of Lansing sidewalk superiority that this would suggest. The sidewalk on Mifflin is awful, some of the worst I’ve found on the east side. Many slabs have subsided far enough to be partially or fully covered in a layer of mud and weeds. Many are crumbled. Walking from Kalamazoo to Michigan, I noticed that all the stamps were Cantu 1987 marks like this one. Notably, that suggests little or no sidewalk work has happened on this block since 1987. It shows.

Looking north on Mifflin Avenue. This is actually the best stretch of sidewalk on the block. I should have faced the other way.

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N. Magnolia Ave., Oren Morse, 1940

This stamp is on the west side of North Magnolia Avenue between Michigan and Vine. I can find references to Mr. and Mrs. Oren Morse, mostly in the society pages, in the (Lansing) State Journal around this time period, but nothing much of interest.

On November 6, 1956, Oren Morse advertised in the classifieds seeking to sell “Purebred Holstein, cows and heifers. Will sell herd or separate.” What is with the overlap between sidewalk contractors and cow breeders?

Facing south on Magnolia. The stamp is at the bottom of the nearest full slab.

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S. Clemens Ave., illegible name, 1952

This stamp on the east side of South Clemens Avenue between Michigan and Prospect is small and indistinct. I suppose that’s why I have evidently overlooked it many, many times; this is a block I walk often and yet I don’t remember noticing it before.

The date seems to be 1952, but the name is a puzzle. I am pretty confident it is _ _ G L _. I also think the first letter is R, or maybe B, and the second letter looks like an E. What do you think?

Looking south on Clemens. The stamp is on the far end of the nearest full slab, facing the other way.
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N. Magnolia Ave., Barnhart & Sons, 1988

What do we have here, on the west side of North Magnolia Avenue between Vine and Fernwood? It’s kind of a mess. The date is upside down, and then the name is stamped twice, presumably because the first one didn’t come out as well as they hoped.

Barnhart, I think you need to have a word with your sons.

Looking north on North Magnolia. Fernwood is in view.
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N. Francis Ave., DPW, 1925

This “second style” Department of Public Works stamp is on North Francis Avenue just south of the southeast corner of Francis and Fernwood. The stamp is unusually far off center, and is getting cozy with a large evergreen tree.

I had to lean right into the adjacent evergreen to take this photo.

The house by this sidewalk faces the 2500 block of Vine Street and was built in 1986. Few of the houses on the east side are that new, so I was curious if another house had preceded it here. I tried looking for a real estate card in the Belon Real Estate Collection at CADL. There are plenty of cards up through 1530 Vine, then there are only two more, one in the 2200 block and one in the 2400 block. This leads me to theorize that this part of Vine was still largely undeveloped in the 1960s (when the cards date from). Still, there must have been a sidewalk here at least back to 1925.

Facing north on Francis, with Vine in view.