My day was just packed, and I had to take my walk late at night, so you’ll have to make do with this 1987 Cantu & Sons stamp from the east side of Regent Street’s 400 block, between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth. It’s out in front of a tiny, cute 1916 bungalow that regrettably snugs right up against the parking lot of the business formerly known as Lucky’s. Unfortunately it was too dark to get a context photo.
After I did a stamp in front of Mercy Ambulance, I figured I would follow up by doing one in front of the Medical Arts Building one block east, on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Ferguson and Holmes. As with Mercy Ambulance, there is something about the starkly modern building that appeals to me. In this case, the oversized caduceus on the front face, though a controversial choice, is certainly a large part of the charm.
I hadn’t realized that this building is owned by Sparrow Hospital, though I wasn’t very surprised to learn it, either. This whole area of downtown Lansing is the land of Sparrow Hospital, and it continues to spread. A clipping from the October 25, 1963, State Journal (courtesy of fellow local history enthusiast Timothy Bowman and his very useful Flickr site) has a photograph of it with a caption saying it “is expected to be completed this week.” (The city’s property records give a construction date of 1964.) The caption goes on to say “It is the largest building of its kind in the Lansing area.” In the photograph it looks just as it does now (minus some rust stains), proving the vintage of the giant caduceus, if there were any doubt. It does not appear to have been a Sparrow property at the start. I’m not sure when Sparrow acquired it.
The stamp is from BBRPCI, who have stamped quite a lot of sidewalk on this part of Michigan Avenue. I was hoping to find a stamp contemporary to the building, but no such luck. There are a few blocks of especially coarse concrete that look different from and older than most of the surrounding sidewalk, so maybe those are remnants of the original construction.
I collected this pair of William Haskins stamps on my way to go vote at my polling place (the Pilgrim Congregational Church). Lansing had a city council and mayoral primary today. The stamps are in a pleasant little shady corridor on the south side of Prospect just east of Lathrop.
Unfortunately I have yet to find a dated William Haskins stamp, though there are a fair number of them sprinkled around this area, and I still don’t know anything about the contractor.
This is the earliest dated Eastlund stamp I have found, though in style it closely resembles an undated stamp I collected in front of Papa John’s. It’s on the north side of Lasalle Boulevard. Lasalle Boulevard is a strange street that has two entirely disconnected parts, one north of Lasalle Gardens and the other south of Lasalle Gardens; this is on the southern leg, in front of the last house before the street takes a dramatic curve to the south.
There are lots of L & L stamps from 2002 along the South Clemens/North Aurelius transition, in the vicinity of the 496 and railroad overpasses. I think they are probably connected with the project that reduced Aurelius to two lanes to four as part of a traffic calming measure. This one is in front of Half Barn Farm, an urban farm on the southeast corner of South Clemens Avenue and Elizabeth Street.
Half Barn Farm is one of many urban farms in the Urbandale neighborhood. It replaced a demolished house in the 2010s.
This stamp is on what I call the “other” Regent Street, the blocks south of I-496. It’s on the east side of the street between Walsh and East Malcolm X.
It appears undated. The only other P. Beasley stamp I’ve found is dated 1960, so it might be from around that time period.
I found this nice example of an E.R. Premoe stamp, and a less nice amount of broken glass, on the sidewalk on the east side of Leslie Street between Elizabeth and the dead end above I-496.
The stamp is in front of a vacant lot. The house on the lot was demolished in 2014.
I found this one on the west side of Ferguson Street between Jerome and Vine. C. Gossett stamps are very plentiful in the neighborhood – probably one of the five most common – but I think this is the first one I have seen with a diagonal placement. I wonder why someone decided to do it that way, this time?
This remnant of a stamp is on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Clifford and Ferguson. Only the faintest impression remains of a date. I caught sight of it on a nighttime walk and I suspect it would only be visible by streetlight; anything brighter would probably completely wash it out. It’s on one end of a set of three slabs of similar composition, likely poured at the same time. All three are lined up on one side of a double-wide sidewalk. The slabs side-by-side with these look to be of a different vintage.
I can’t be sure the date is 1960. It might be 1980. It looks more like 1960 to me and the extremely worn state of it also inclines me to the earlier date.
This is out in front of the driveway of Mercy Ambulance, which surely also has something to do with how worn it is. Mercy Ambulance is a starkly modern building for the block, barnlike, and yet I find it strangely appealing in an ugly sort of way. According to their Web site, Mercy Ambulance was founded in 1955 by Rodney Palmer. As the current President is Dennis G. Palmer, I am assuming it is still in the same family. I thought perhaps the building dated from 1955 and was built for Mercy Ambulance, but that turned out to be incorrect. The city’s records say it was built in 1940. Mercy Ambulance was originally located on Pennsylvania Avenue and, according to an old issue of the Eastside Neighborhood Organization News, moved to this building in 1971.
Prior to Mercy Ambulance moving in, the building (and its attached apartment) belonged to Mundo Faggion Plumbing and Heating. According to a January 24, 1994, obituary in the Lansing State Journal, Armando “Mundo” Faggion founded that business in 1929.
I like a good, deep stamp like this one, as they’re more likely to stick around for some future sidewalk stamp cataloguer. They also just look nicer. The subdued illumination of the street light made some nice shadows on it.
This stamp is in front of the vacant former Wright & Filippis building on the south side of Michigan Avenue, between Clifford and Lathrop.
