This is certainly the newest sidewalk I have featured here. It’s in front of an apartment building on the south side of Prospect Street between Bingham and Pennsylvania.
How do I know it’s the newest? Because yesterday I walked past it and it looked like this:
I was delighted by this discovery. It meant I could walk back again the next day and see the freshest stamp yet. Who would it be? One of the contractors I already know like old friends, or a new kid on the block? I could hardly wait to find out.
Imagine my disappointment when I returned to find a beautifully smooth and fresh new sidewalk – unstamped. Into the Hall of Shame with you!
The previous sidewalk was straight, and heaved up severely by the tree’s roots. Looks like the tree sustained a little bit of damage in the battle, but won the war: the sidewalk has ceded the territory.
These stamps are on the north side of Prospect Street between Bingham and Jones. They are not on the sidewalk but rather the driveway and driveway apron. There are an almost comical number of them, with at least three on the driveway and two on the apron.
The center of the driveway.
I recognize the stamp as one I’ve seen and been frustrated by before. It’s frustrating because I can never quite read it with full confidence. My best guess has been “E. Schullberger,” but searching old newspapers does not turn up that name anywhere, which makes me think I am misreading. The other ones I have found are from the 1920s, but the date of these is illegible. Update 5/9/21: I now believe this is E. Schneeberger.
This is the first 1970s DPW stamp I have found, and it’s on the east side of Bingham just south of Eureka, in a lovely patch of dappled shade. It’s in the style of the 1980s stamps I have previously collected.
The corner of Eureka and Bingham, looking northeast toward the back end of Sparrow. The stamp is at the lower right.
This stamp (actually a pair) is on the west side of Virginia Street between Eureka and Prospect. This is the first appearance of Dave Price Construction in this blog. The sidewalk is undated, so Dave is lucky I didn’t put this in the Hall of Shame. It looks like the driveway was probably done at the same time.
OpenCorporates has a listing for Dave Price Construction, LLC, incorporated in 2008 and dissolved in 2011. They were located in Charlotte. Interestingly, the only two names that show up on any of the documents filed are a Sherri Price who signed the Articles of Incorporation and a Manuel Moreno who was the registered agent and CEO. This led me to imagine the following dialogue:
“So Dave Price… does he own the business, or was he just the founder?”
“Oh, neither.”
“Then why is it called Dave Price Construction?”
“Dave is just the guy we send out to actually do the construction. We point him at a stretch of sidewalk and say ‘Get working.'”
Looking south on Virginia Street, which is a little one-block street between Eureka and Prospect which, like its sister street Rosamond, isn’t really part of the normal street grid.
This illegible stamp is on the north side of Elizabeth Street between Clemens and Fairview, just west of the alley. It doesn’t resemble any stamp that I recognize, but I can’t make out more than couple of letters. It looks to start with a K or B.
I went in closer than usual for the photo to try to make details more apparent, in case anyone else has something jump out at them.
The date is also illegible. I can say with fair confidence that one digit is a “6”, but I can’t be sure whether it’s the last digit or the penultimate one, so I can’t even narrow down a decade.
Looking east on Elizabeth Street. That’s an alley just ahead.
Update 4/28/21: Walking past it in different light, it suddenly jumped out at me that it is an L. Ketchum stamp. The date is almost certainly 1960s, like the other one I’ve found, and I think it’s 1961.
When I first started this blog, I thought it was a big deal to find a 1920s stamp. That didn’t last long. I quickly discovered stamps in the teens and not too long later, a few in the aughts. But I can’t quite get past my initial belief that every 1920s stamp had to be photographed as rare, so even now that I’ve learned how plentiful they are, I will always stop for a 20s.
This faded Department of Public Works stamp is on Marcus Street, on the southeast corner of Marcus and South Clemens Avenue. DPW stamps are the most common 1920s stamps that I’ve found.
Looking south on Clemens; the stamp is on the left, on Marcus.
Here’s another old Department of Public Works stamp, on the north side of Vine Street, west of the corner of Hayford.
The crosswalks at this intersection have recently been painted with a confetti-like pattern. Apparently someone received a small grant from the Arts Council to make this happen.
Looking at the Hayford crosswalk over Vine with the stamp visible to the lower right.
Another look at the crosswalk. All four of them have been painted similarly.
This is a Barnhart & Son (just the singular Son this time, though other stamps from 1986 have plural Sons) stamp on the west side of North Fairview Avenue between Fernwood and Saginaw.
The variation in name is interesting, but what really catches my eye when I walk this block is some graffiti in the adjacent slab. It’s interesting to note that although this particular sidewalk must have been poured in the 1990s (I think that says 1996, though it’s pretty messy), Red Buddy’s birth year matches the date on several nearby Barnhart stamps.
I ran across this “SC Env” stamp on the east side of South Fairview Avenue between Marcus and Elizabeth. It’s only the second one of these I’ve found, both the same year, yet two completely different styles of stamp. I’m glad I saw it, because it finally motivates me to post an update that I had meant to do a couple of months ago. I discovered who “S.C. Env.” is, just a short while after posting the first stamp I found from them.
Entrepreneur John Kendrick Sears, 41, of Lansing, was killed in a motorcycle accident in Mexico. Sears was shaped by his family’s business, College Bike Shop. In 2006, he founded his own demolition company, SC Environmental Services. Sears also owned properties in Old Town and Reo Town.
The Lansing State Journal has a longer article about Sears. It describes SC Environmental Services as a demolition and environmental remediation company. This adds up: both the stamps I have found are in front of vacant lots. People who knew Sears describe him as striving to find better ways to recycle and reuse materials from demolition, and as having a love for architecture.
This is the latest DPS (Department of Public Service) stamp I have found, and the only DPW/DPS/etc. stamp I have found from the 1960s. It’s on a stretch of sidewalk in front of Urbandale Farm, on the east side of South Hayford Avenue between Horton and the dead end. Hayford has lost the last stretch of sidewalk on the west side of the street to the Urbandale demolition project, but most of the east side’s sidewalk is still intact since there are three houses still hanging on to the south of Urbandale Farm.
The southern stamp of a pair. The last digit looks altered, as though a “4” were written overtop something else.The northern stamp makes the decade impossible to read, but the “4” is more prominent.
Urbandale Farm was the first big urban farm project in Lansing. It sits on a site that once held the Hayford Street Pumping Station. Yes, Hayford Street. When I first ran into references to Hayford Street in the Lansing City Code, I thought it was a careless error. But this photo of the old pumping station, clearly marked “Hayford Street Pumping Station,” tells me otherwise. The photo, dated 1985, comes from the Caterino Real Estate Image Collection at the Capital Area District Library. David Caterino, from the 1960s through the 1980s, used to drive around and take photos of notable structures, often because he had reason to think they were about to be demolished. Indeed, there is a photo of its demolition on page B1 of the Lansing State Journal, May 20, 1986. The caption reads,
LANDMARK FALLS
Lansing’s Hayford Street Pumping Station, built in 1932, fell to a wrecking company crane Monday. It is to be replaced by a new station on Mifflin Street on Lansing’s east side.
Mifflin Street, you say? If that isn’t an error, then Mifflin has also ascended from being a mere Street to a lofty Avenue sometime after May 1986. At the moment, all the streets from Clemens east to Mifflin (which includes Hayford) are Avenues. I need to get old official maps to figure out whether some of the others are also former Streets and when they changed.
The fence around the Urbandale Farm. It dates from the pump station days, since it can be seen in another Caterino photo.
The Hayford station was apparently desperately overdue for replacement at the time. It all too often broke down, causing around 40 nearby houses to flood with sewage. It’s just a shame that the new one (a baleful box on a hill at the south end of Mifflin) doesn’t have the sense of style and propriety that the 1930s edifice did.
Looking north on Hayford, with Urbandale Farm on the right.
