Here’s a glamour shot for you. You’ve seen the J. Carter stamp before. The McNeilly stamp hasn’t appeared here before, though others just like it from this vicinity have. But the real reason I wanted this photo is that it just looks so aesthetic when a dusting of snow puddles inside the letters of a contractor stamp. They’re such wonderful little artifacts in all seasons.
This is from the east side of Allen Street between Kalamazoo and Marcus, next to the Neogen building.
Today’s entry wraps up my brief tour of the 800 block of Call Street on the old north side. I suppose this could be a “hall of shame” but since I don’t know when it dates from or what the story is behind it, I’ll file it under “curiosities” instead. It’s on the north side of the block, close to the corner of Seventh Avenue.
Inexplicably, despite the rest of this block of Call Street having sidewalks, this section has none. It doesn’t appear to be subsided under the grass, or crumbled away. No, it appears that there has never been a sidewalk here. The sidewalk disappears (just after a 1940s DPW stamp) and then reappears before the intersection, and I cannot fathom any reason for this.
Continuing my brief tour of the 800 block of Call Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues: this stamp is from the south side of the block. Eastlund Concrete stamps are common enough, but it’s the misprint of the date that got my attention.
Continuing my look at the 800 block of Call Street between 7th and 8th Avenues: this stamp is on the north side of the street and is a new contractor for this blog! Hooray! The stamp is dated 1962, which is the same year the house it is in front of was built. Perhaps the sidewalk was laid during the construction of the property. The house is the newest one on the block. The next oldest ones are from the 1940s. The majority of houses on the block are from the 1920s, but their next-door neighbor to the west is a house from 1880! It pre-dates the next oldest house on the block by 40 years. Intriguing.
I haven’t had much luck turning up information about Cleghorn Construction. From old State Journal classifieds, I can see that there was a John Cleghorn associated with Capitol City Realty around this time, but I don’t know if there is a connection.
Happy new year to both of my readers!
I picked a street I hadn’t been to before to scout for sidewalk stamps today. The lucky street was Call Street, on the old north side, chosen for being somewhat near an errand I was on. The next few days of blogging will be stamps and curiosities from the 800 block of Call.
This is a C. Wilkinson stamp in front of a house on the north side of Call, at the northwest corner of Call and Eighth Avenue. Yes, Lansing has an Eighth Avenue, a much smaller street than the better-known Eighth Street. There is also a longer Seventh Avenue one block west, but no other numbered avenues I know of. Eighth Street is sensibly named: it is (more or less) the eighth street from the dividing line downtown. I have no idea how Seventh and Eighth Avenues come by their names.
I have found a few C. Wilkinson stamps before, all from the 1960s. I still haven’t been successful finding anything out about C. Wilkinson. I wonder if it might be the Charles H. Wilkinson (1907-1981) who is buried in Evergreen Cemetery, but I have no basis for connecting them other than the name and date, so it’s a long shot.
This wasn’t a good night to hunt sidewalk stamps because so many sidewalks were covered in snow and ice. The ice is the worst, but that’s inevitably what the snow becomes, left long enough. Last year I slipped on an icy walk and fell flat on my back without a chance to brace myself. I cracked my head so hard that my extremities went numb and I had to lie there for a few minutes, so I have gotten very gunshy about icy sidewalks and very judgmental of people who leave them that way.
So, today’s entry is the city code on sidewalk clearing.
1020.06. – Snow and ice.
(a) No person shall permit any snow or ice to remain on any public sidewalk adjacent to any house, building or lot owned or occupied by that person, or on the public sidewalk adjacent to any multifamily dwelling or unoccupied house, building or lot owned by that person, for more than 24 hours after the same has fallen or formed. The property owner, as used in this section, shall be the owner of record whose name appears on the City’s property assessment records.
(b) No person shall place or cause to be placed ice or snow upon a right-of-way so as to impair vehicular or pedestrian traffic.
Codified Ordinances of Lansing, Michigan, part 10, Street and Sidewalk Areas
Note the 24 hour rule in (a). They used to give you 24 hours after the snow had stopped falling, but several years ago this was changed to 24 hours after the snow starts. This is because we had a year so snowy that a few times it essentially fell continuously for days, leaving them unable to cite people who left it to pile up on the sidewalk.
Part (c) just gives the penalties for violations, and that’s long and dull, so I’ll skip to (d):
(d) It shall be the duty of the Public Service Department to give general notice to every owner, possessor or occupier of land and every person having charge of any land within the city by publication at least once in a newspaper of general circulation in the city of the requirements that (1) property owners must remove snow or ice from a public sidewalk as stated in subsection (a); (2) causing ice or snow to be placed upon a right-of-way so as to impair vehicular or pedestrian traffic is prohibited as stated in subsection (b); and (3) the city may remove or cause to be removed the snow or ice and the property owner will be assessed the City’s removal cost, including an administrative fee, as established by resolution from time to time as stated in subsection (c). In addition to this published notice, the Public Service Department shall give notice to every owner, possessor or occupier of land, and to every person having charge of any land within the city by placing a posting on the property at least 24 hours after snow or ice has fallen or formed. said posting shall include at minimum the following provisions: [recap of the rules and penalties, plus the date and time the snow violation notice was posted] … The failure of any person to receive the notice shall not affect the validity of any action taken under this section.
Codified Ordinances of Lansing, Michigan, part 10, Street and Sidewalk Areas
Part (d) is the part that the local alt-weekly the City Pulse probably loves, since they seem to have ended up as the paper of record for legal notices that have to be published in a general circulation newspaper. I guess they’re cheaper than the Lansing State Journal.
On to enforcement:
(e) Any person in violation of subsection (a) or (b) of this section shall also be responsible for a municipal civil infraction and may be fined in accordance with Section 203.06 of this Code. For purposes of establishing civil fines, all public sidewalks and rights-of-way shall be divided into two tiers, as follows:
(1) Tier one shall be every public sidewalk adjacent to a roadway with a speed limit of 30 mph or more.
(2) Tier two shall be all public sidewalks which are not tier one.
(f) A police officer or duly authorized agent of the City shall issue a snow violation citation to the occupant or owner of any property in violation of this section.
Codified Ordinances of Lansing, Michigan, part 10, Street and Sidewalk Areas
It’s interesting to note that failure to clear the sidewalk apparently results in a higher fine on a street with a speed limit at or above 30. I suppose that’s because the hazards to pedestrians from having to divert into the street become higher.
Finally, my favorite part:
The Director of Public Service shall designate personnel to be authorized to enforce this section. After such authorization, each designated person shall subscribe to an oath and place the same on file with the City Clerk. The oath shall be in substantially the following form:
“I do solemnly swear (to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and) that I will faithfully discharge my duties in enforcing the provisions of Section 1020.06 of the Codified Ordinances of the City of Lansing.”
Codified Ordinances of Lansing, Michigan, part 10, Street and Sidewalk Areas
That’s right, anyone deputized to post a snow violation notice on your door is supposed to be made to swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States. That same language appears in other places in the ordinances that deal with people being deputized for property code enforcement. Fealty to the Constitution really seems to be above the pay grade of a code compliance officer. I do wonder what the meaning of the parenthetical clause is. Is that part optional? If so, why is it here at all?
Merry Christmas, dear readers, all two or three of you! Today I thought I would share something simple but puzzling. I have noticed these marks on the sidewalk in front of the big old Tudor house on Jerome Street. No, not this one, the other big old Tudor house on Jerome Street, on the northwest corner of Jerome and Horton. There are three of these geometric marks on the sidewalk in front of that house, and I don’t know what they are.
I think I have noticed markings like this in one other place on the east side (in the Prospect Place neighborhood, if I remember correctly). They seem too utilitarian and asymmetric to be purely decorative, but then, what do they do? If anyone knows or has a guess I would be interested to hear it.
These handwritten stamps are a little way up the street from the handwritten C.H. Peel, but in this case I can be quite confident they are contractor’s marks from the fact that there are two of them paired on either end of a stretch of sidewalk, as a contractor would do to mark the beginning and end of the work they were responsible for. This is on the west side of the 400 block of Leslie Street between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth.
In these (not very good) photos it is hard to tell that the first letter is a C, but I’ve seen it by daylight and know that it is. My usual tricks didn’t bring me any joy. I couldn’t find out anything at all about C. Fletcher.
This handwritten mark is on the west side of Leslie Street’s 500 block, between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth. Is it a contractor’s mark, or graffiti? It could easily be either, but guess is the former, based on its placement.
I can’t seem to find out anything about C.H. Peel, either as a contractor or as a person, but my guess is that this is either Charles Hubert Peel or his son Charles H. Peel Jr. Both lived (and died) in Lansing according to Find A Grave, and both were plausible ages in 1961. The father lived 1907-1988 and the son lived 1932-1988. Sadly, they died close together, first Charles Jr. in May 1988 and then Charles Sr. in November that year.
This small cover is on the north side of East Michigan Avenue between Clemens and Horton, in front of the residential-looking building that houses the City Pulse office, as I wrote about previously. Around the triangle marking on it are the words “Observation – Monitoring – Well” and inside the triangle is the warning “Do not fill.” I did not actually know what it was, so I had to look it up. It turns out it is a monitoring well, used to monitor groundwater level and quality.
The company name on it is Kilman Electriloc. I can turn up several patents assigned to that company, including one from 1995 for a monitoring well cover. OpenCorporates indicates that Kilman Electriloc of Cumming, Georgia, dissolved as a corporation in 2011. There is, however, also a still-active record for Kilman Bros. in nearby Grayson, Georgia. Kilman Bros. is engaged in the business of well drilling, among other things. I assume there is a relationship, at least a familial one.
