bunnyhugger

Posted on May 16, 2021 by bunnyhugger

E. Michigan Ave., L & L, 2000

This stamp is in front of the large building on the southeast corner of East Michigan Avenue and Regent Street. The building was originally an A&P, but I know it best as H.C. Berger, a photocopier dealer. I cut through their parking lot countless times heading home from the bus stop after grad school classes. According to the City Pulse “New in Town” column on November 27, 2013, H.C. Berger had been there since 1973.

In 2013 the Berger family sold the building and H.C. Berger moved to Okemos. Today they seem to have either merged with or been bought by A.B. Dick Document Solutions of Grand Rapids. Their Web site has both names in the logo, but most of the text including the “About Us” page just refers to them as A.B. Dick.

At that time, a convenience store from down the street called Michigan Mart moved in. As reported in the above “New in Town” article, the new owners talked big about expanding it into a local grocery store with produce and a deli counter and the whole bit. Instead, disappointingly, it limped along with largely bare shelves as a party store in a way-too-big building before closing again. It has had a “for lease” sign in the window for ages now gathering dust. (The back of the building and its ample parking is used by Michigan Motors, a very odd supposed used car lot that does not actually appear to sell any cars.) One beneficial thing Michigan Mart did was to remove part of the corrugated siding from the building, allowing the nicer flat stone siding to surface.

Posted on May 15, 2021 by bunnyhugger

Prospect St., DPW, 1942

This isn’t a sidewalk or even a driveway. It’s a concrete pad on the Prospect Street side of the old L.F.D. No. 4 fire station (now home to the Davies Project). The building faces Bingham Street at the northwest corner of Bingham and Prospect.

It appears that at some point the concrete was covered with a layer of asphalt that has mostly worn away, letting the old stamp resurface. I like how it looks. 1942 is an especially common year for DPW stamps in the neighborhood, usually using the “old style” (1910s- early 1940s) stamp.

This is the old fire station. The stamp is on the right front corner of the concrete pad next to the building.

Posted on May 14, 2021 by bunnyhugger

Hickory St., DPW, 1921

This is one of my favorite curiosities to catalogue, a diagonal stamp. All of the diagonal Department of Public Works stamps I’ve found date from 1921 except one (which has a 1924 date). Some specific foreman must have favored diagonal stamps around that time, or at least that’s my theory.

This stamp is near the northwest corner of South Holmes Street and Hickory Street, just barely on Hickory.

The date is hard to see if you don’t know where to look. It’s underneath and at an angle to the name stamp, facing vertically in this photo. This is taken from just east of the stamp, facing west.

This one is taken from the south edge of the slab, facing north, in order to orient the date right side up.

Standing at the corner of Hickory (on the left) and Holmes (on the right). The stamp is on the extra-wide block in the center of the photo.

Posted on May 13, 2021May 13, 2023 by bunnyhugger

S. Pennsylvania Ave., Basile, undated

This stamp is on the front walk of a house on the west side of South Pennsylvania Avenue between Eureka and Prospect, the next house south from Monday’s F.N. Rounsville stamp.

I don’t recognize the contractor name and I’m not confident about it. It looks like “Basile” but there might be something worn away before that. I haven’t yet found a surefire match to the name. The best lead I have is that there is, or was, a company in Livonia called Peter A. Basile and Sons. In fact, I have just learned I am not the only person in Michigan taking photos of sidewalk stamps, as someone on Flickr has posted a photograph of a Peter A. Basile and Sons stamp in Detroit. And that led me to the very startling discovery of an entire Flickr pool of sidewalk stamps. Unfortunately, the last posting to its discussion board is someone a year ago complaining that the group admin has gone silent and it is no longer possible to get photos approved for the pool.

Looking north on Pennsylvania. The stamp is at the foot of the front walk.

Update 5/12: Based on one I found on East Michigan Avenue, this probably originally read “Bond Basile.”

Posted on May 12, 2021 by bunnyhugger

Fernwood St., Wm. Meister, 1924

This stamp from William Meister is on the northwest corner of North Hayford Avenue and Fernwood Street, facing Fernwood. (Google Maps thinks Fernwood is an Avenue but all the street signs I’ve seen have it as Street. I’ve found quite a few of these Street/Avenue discrepancies.) There’s another one a bit further west on Fernwood, the same year.

My previous entry on William Meister referenced an old Lansing State Journal article I had found which reported that Meister and Fred Johnson would be constructing a new cobblestone entrance to Moores Park from Woodlawn Avenue, one which promised to be “one of the most attractive and artistic of any in any of the municipal walks.” I remarked in that entry, “I am not very familiar with Moores Park, so I don’t know what the walk in question looks like today.” Now seems like a good time to mention that I later checked the Google Street View of the Woodlawn entrance to Moores Park and could plainly see the sloping cobblestone-lined path. It is indeed attractive. It would lead one right to the Moores Memorial Natatorium, a historic and impressive-looking raised pool currently threatened with demolition.

Looking east on Fernwood. This sidewalk is pretty cracked up, but still in better shape than the last Meister stamp I featured.

Posted on May 11, 2021 by bunnyhugger

S. Pennsylvania Ave., F.N. Rounsville, 1909(?)

This one is on the east side of South Pennsylvania Avenue just north of Prospect. I started to bypass it as I took it to be yet another very worn old V.D. Minnis stamp (I like those but don’t necessarily stop for all of them, plus they’re mostly undated), then I stopped and took another look and realized that it was something a lot rarer. Had this been the only one I had seen, it would have been illegible, but instead I recognized it as the second F.N. Rounsville stamp in my collection. The date is certainly in the aughts. In person I thought it looked like 09, but in the photo it looks like 08, which is the date on the other Rounsville stamp I found in the same neighborhood. I can’t make out a month this time.

The stamp is strangely off center. It makes me wonder if the sidewalk used to be wider here.

I’m glad I happened to see this one, because of the condition it’s in. It surely can’t last too much longer.

Looking north up Pennsylvania Avenue, from just north of the corner of Prospect Street.

Posted on May 10, 2021 by bunnyhugger

Marcus St., DPW, 1926

I know a 1920s Department of Public Works stamp is pretty old hat for the blog by now. This one is pretty badly preserved, too, recognizable more by shape than anything else. But it’s interesting for its location. It’s on Marcus Street at the southeast corner of Hayford and Marcus, which puts it directly across the street from another DPW stamp from 1926. What’s notable is that despite being from the same year and in close proximity, they are two different styles of stamp, this one being the earliest known version (apparently used from the 1910s to early 1940s) and the other one being the second style (apparently used from the mid-1920s through the 1940s).

Looking east on Marcus Street. The house here faces Hayford.

Posted on May 10, 2021May 10, 2021 by bunnyhugger

Update: E. Schneeberger

I had a breakthrough on my walk yesterday. I passed a stamp on Vine – one I have featured before – from a contractor who has previously plagued me because all of their stamps have been too worn for me to quite read the name. I tagged them “Schullberger” even though that didn’t seem like a name I could turn up in records, just to keep them together. But as I walked in bright, late afternoon light yesterday, the angle of the sun really drew this one out and I suddenly realized it was most likely “Schneeberger.”

I can’t find anything definite, but I have a couple of leads. All of the Schneeberger stamps I have found are from the 1920s. On March 24, 1922, the Lansing State Journal reported that Edward Schneeberger of New York Avenue had a tire stolen from his car. This was probably the Edward Charles Schneeberger (1872-1942) who is now buried in Mount Hope Cemetery.

I also find references to the Schneeberger Builders bowling team in the league bowling results pages (often a friend to this blog) between 1950 and 1970. I don’t know if this is a descendent of E. Schneeberger’s business, but it’s certainly possible.

Posted on May 9, 2021 by bunnyhugger

N. Howard St., BdWL, 1974

Unfortunately I still haven’t worked out who the mysterious “BdWL” is, but I did find a large cache of them on the west side of North Howard Street between Michigan Avenue and Lasalle Gardens. These are some of the clearest ones I’ve seen, and dated, which is somewhat uncommon.

There are several of them along this block, including this pair facing each other (one undated).

This stretch of sidewalk runs along the east side of the Feldman Chevrolet (formerly Bud Kouts) lot. There is a surprising stretch of good sidewalk here, considering there are no houses along it. I’m a little surprised so much sidewalk work was being done along this corridor in the 1970s.

I discovered an odd little discrepancy while getting this post ready. Google Maps thinks Howard north of Michigan is an Avenue. City records seemed to indicate Street. That isn’t the first time I’ve found something like that; the main one that comes to mind is that Google thinks Horton is a Street but it is actually an Avenue. I did what I usually do when there’s a conflict like this: I tried to settle it by looking at the street signs on Google Street View. This turned up something peculiar: the street signs, at least as photographed in 2019, have Howard as a “ST” everywhere except a single instance of “AV” at the intersection of Lasalle Gardens. This suggests Google’s “Howard Avenue” is not completely without justification, but the preponderance of evidence favors Street.

Looking south with Michigan Avenue in view. On the right is Feldman Chevrolet.

Posted on May 8, 2021May 8, 2021 by bunnyhugger

Vine St., Kegle Construction, 1987

I only found my first Kegle stamp pretty recently and yet I’ve already found another one. The style is very different, suggesting a different time period, but the first one was undated so I can’t be sure. This one is on the southeast corner of North Clemens Avenue and Vine Street, on the driveway of a house facing Clemens.

The leftmost stamp (facing the driveway). Each of the three blocks that comprise the driveway has one.

There are actually four of them: three on the driveway above the sidewalk, and one on what I call the driveway apron, between the sidewalk and the street. The date is hard or impossible to read on two of them, but fortunately it comes through as 1987 on the other two. This confirms that the company did survive the death of James F. Kegle in 1984 (something I wondered about in my previous Kegle entry).

Capital City Sidewalks

Author: bunnyhugger