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Lasalle Gdns., J.A. Hicks, 1955

This stamp is on the south side of Lasalle Gardens (according to the city, “Gardens” is the suffix, like “Street,” rather than part of the name proper) between Kipling and Midvale. This neighborhood on the east edge of Lansing is the Midtown subdivision, developed in the 1950s, around the same time as the nearby Frandor shopping center. It is full of neat little 1950s homes and so reminds me of the street I grew up on. The house this is in front of was built in 1955, the same year as the stamp, and so most likely the sidewalk was installed by the builders.

So who was J.A. Hicks? Well, one clue is that there was until recently a J.A. Hicks Building in East Lansing. It was a row of brick storefronts downtown, and so of course it was torn down to built a mini-Target and a big pile of lofts. Yet aside from references to the building, I could not turn up anything about J.A. Hicks, except for a few classified ads from someone by that name selling non-sidewalk-related items in the 1910s. So I tried one of my usual strategies, checking Find a Grave to see if I could determine a full name. There I found a John A. Hicks, born in 1872 and buried in the Mount Hope Cemetery in Lansing. That would make him old enough to be the J.A. Hicks of the classified ads. He was also in the right line of work: Polk’s Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory of 1921 has an entry for John A. Hicks that attaches him to a firm called the Hicks-Nichols Co., line of business given as “real est.”

A more or less easterly view on Lasalle Gardens.

But wait: there’s a problem. John A. Hicks died in 1937. Frustratingly, I have not been able to find his obituary, which would answer the question I am left with: did he have a son with the same name or initials? There was certainly some John Hicks around East Lansing in the 1950s, but he seems to have been a merchant. On December 2, 1953, the [Lansing] State Journal reported on a “new innovation in the field of merchandising In East Lansing these days,” which was “the dressing up of the back doors to shops along the city’s main street to attract customers from the city’s new municipal parking lots.” It goes on to say that “John Hicks opened up the back door of his shop when the first municipal lot was completed several years ago.” The January 24, 1956, State Journal article refers to “John Hicks, retiring president of the city’s Merchants Association.”

I tried the Capital Area District Library’s local history collection index, but there wasn’t a single entry for the keyword “Hicks” – this despite the fact that John A. Hicks’s death was considered notable enough to rate an entry in the State Journal‘s article “Chronological List of Important Events in Lansing During Past Year” on New Year’s Day 1938. Under the subheading “Important Deaths of Year” is “Nov. 10 – John A. Hicks, East Lansing business man, succumbed.”

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Hall of Fame: Substitute Sidewalk on Larned St.

This entry marks the debut of a new, I hope recurring, feature: the Hall of Fame. Regular readers know that I already have a Hall of Shame. I thought I should balance it with a feature celebrating the unsung heroes who have, in some way, gone above and beyond for the cause of sidewalks in Lansing.

Looking east on Larned from the corner of Jones.

The homeowner on the northeast corner of Jones and Larned is apparently responsible for this “sidewalk” made of pavers. It picks up where the sidewalk abruptly ends on Larned and goes to Jones Street. Across Jones to the west, the official sidewalk resumes. Google Street View images of this block from 2011 show a deep furrow where people have been walking across the lawn to get from one disconnected sidewalk to the next, so a path was obviously sorely needed.

Here is where the sidewalk abruptly ends on Larned and the homegrown sidewalk starts.

I find it really strange that the sidewalk ends about two lot widths from the edge of Jones, only to resume again after. I have no inside knowledge about how the city decides where sidewalks have to be installed, but I have noticed some patterns from which I have inferred rules, or at least rules of thumb. A block that has no houses facing it will usually not have a sidewalk. If a house is the last one on a block before a dead end or an unoccupied block, the sidewalk might end there. But if there is at least one house on a block, and somewhere else one might be walking to from there, it usually has a sidewalk all the way along. This gap on Larned is an anomaly, at least compared with the experiences I’ve had of east side sidewalks.

I wonder if the city would have granted the permit needed for the resident to just decide to install a proper sidewalk. They can compel an owner to install one (I’ve seen it in very old news articles), but can they forbid it? Would they be likely to, if someone wanted to pay for it? I don’t know. But as a “good enough” solution and a service to pedestrians, this “sidewalk” earns my respect. So won’t you join me in saluting the inaugural sidewalk Hall of Famer?

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Jerome St., illegible name, 1949

This one is on the front walk of a house on the north side of Jerome Street between Custer and Rumsey. Unfortunately it is not quite legible in full. The name appears to be two initials and then a surname. The surname looks like it starts with “Look-” but might actually be “Locke” as I can find evidence of a family with that name in Lansing in this time period. The line underneath that is totally illegible. I had no joy trying to find any contractor matching these details. At least the date is clear enough.

The stamp is diagonal in the bottom right corner of the sidewalk end of the front walk.

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Bement St., DPW, October 1918(?)

This one is on the south side of Bement Street between Jones and Holmes and it’s an old-timer, though it’s hard to be sure of the year. When I first saw it I thought it read 1914, which would have been the earliest Department of Public Works stamp I’d found. When I got back there to photograph it, it was in wetter conditions, and I think they made the date more legible and unfortunately revealed it to probably be 1918. It’s probably either that or 1916, but I favor 1918. Anyway, it’s quite an old one. Ones that include a month are, in my experience, always from 1924 or earlier.

The placement is a bit nontraditional. Usually the DPW stamps the month and date underneath the name, rather than side by side like this.

Looking east on Bement Street.
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N. Fairview Ave., DPW, 1944

This one is on the apron of a driveway on the west side of North Fairview Avenue between Vine and Fernwood. It’s stamped diagonally on the south corner of the apron, facing the sidewalk so pedestrians can admire it. I am mildly curious what circumstances result in the city having to construct (or more likely reconstruct) someone’s driveway apron. I’m guessing it happens when they have to tear up for sewer work, for instance.

An overview of the driveway apron. There is also an Ayala’s stamp on the other side, but Ayala’s chose to have it face the street instead.

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Larned St., Wm. Meister, 1921

This rugged and worn stamp from the north side of Larned Street between Jones and Holmes seems hopelessly illegible at first blush. A comparison with other stamps, however, reveals that it is probably a William Meister stamp from 1921.

Looking west on Larned Street. This stamp is close to the corner of South Holmes.
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Rumsey Ave., illegible name, 1952

Here is a mystery from the west side of Rumsey Avenue between Jerome and Vine, in the Eastfield neighborhood. The name is illegible but the layout looks like it might be an arch. I don’t recognize the style as matching one of the usual suspects, and it’s also placed strangely, close to vertically centered, but off on the right side of the block.

Looking north on Rumsey, with the stamp bottom right.

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S. Pennsylvania Ave., Minnis & Ewer, August 1910

Yes, it looks like several Minnis & Ewer stamps I’ve done before, but this one is new, I promise. It’s on the east side of South Pennsylvania Avenue between Prospect and Kalamazoo. There are a lot of Minnis and Ewer stamps with the same date (8-10) in this vicinity.

The northern stamp of the pair.

Actually, there are a pair of them, roughly on either end of a residential lot. At the moment they are copiously decorated with mulberries that have fallen from a tree that shadows the sidewalk.

Facing south from the northern stamp.
The southern stamp.

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Shepard St., Dan(?) Wagner, 1962

It’s not clear whether this stamp on the west side of Shepard Street (south of Elizabeth, before the I-496 dead end) is a contractor’s mark or graffiti. It’s done so crudely that I’d be inclined to say graffiti, except that it reminds me of this handwritten L. Miller stamp, which I have reason to believe is a contractor’s mark. The last name is definitely Wagner. The first name is rather obscure but might be Dan or Dave.

I can’t find anything about a contractor named Wagner working in the area in the right sort of time period, so if this is a contractor’s stamp it’s a mysterious one.

Looking north on Shepard Street, with Elizabeth Street in view.

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Prospect St., J.P. Sleight, 1908

Recently my husband showed me a picture of this stamp, which he encountered on a walk. At first I thought it was the one on Bingham, which I had already covered, but when he said it was on Prospect Street, I set out to find it. It turned out to be a new one to me, mainly because it’s west of Pennsylvania and I rarely cross Pennsylvania on my walks. I had not walked past Eighth on Prospect before, and this stamp is on the south side of Prospect between Eighth and Hosmer.

It’s interesting to notice that the spacing of the date differs between this stamp and my previous J.P. Sleight 1908 stamp. Did they stamp each digit separately, or have two noticeably different date stamps?

This is a view west on Prospect. The stamp is too distant to make out, but it’s in front of the nearest visible house.

This walk is in good condition, the best of the J.P. Sleight walks I’ve found, so I hope it will remain here even if Mayor Schor is re-elected and fixes the sidewalks as promised.