Here is the other curb walk on Regent Street. (For those new to my blog, “curb walk” is the totally invented name I came up with for the bits of pavement that lead from the sidewalk to the curb as I don’t know what they’re actually called.) It is on the west side of the 200 block between Kalamazoo and Michigan. The stamp comes from L & L, already well represented in this blog.
Good old Y2K! I don’t remember seeing this one made even though I was walking this street to the bus stop quite a bit back then. But then, why would I remember something like that? Of course, now I’m very curious about the origin and purpose of these bits of sidewalk, so I have questions. Was there one there before and this was a replacement of it? Or did the owners of the property have one made new, and if so, why? It can’t date to the building of the house and isn’t nearly as old as the Minnis & Ewer-stamped one.
The stamp in context, looking southwest. I’m sorry I didn’t capture the house it’s in front of, but according to neighborhood rumor, recently someone got the cops called on them for taking photos of street trees, so apparently people get jumpy if a camera is aimed toward their property.
Today’s is actually a cluster. I’ve noticed these before but usually when walking at night, when it would have been hard to get a good photo. I finally passed this way in the evening. This is on the south side of the 1400 block of East Michigan Avenue between Clifford and Holmes, in front of the Physicians Health Plan building. By sheer, until-now unrecognized, coincidence, this is actually due north of yesterday’s Beverly Place Apartments location, 1400 East Michigan versus yesterday’s 1401 East Kalamazoo.
Either this one was done at the beginning of the work day, or by the person on the crew whose views on “doing things right” most resembled my dad’s.
The J. Carter Co. of Holt seems to be out of business, although only recently. OpenCorporates gives its incorporation date as 1984 and its dissolution date as 2014. That may not exactly reflect when the business ceased to exist, but the stray traces of it I can find on the Internet suggest it made it to relatively recent times. Its former address, on Keller Road in Holt, is now occupied by Moore Trosper. Whether they just took over the building or also bought out the business I don’t know.
The stamp in the top photo is visible near the bottom of this one. The parking lot belongs to Physicians Health Plan.
The one thing I have found out about the J. Carter Co. is this brief news item from page 12 of the October 14, 1987, Lansing State Journal: “The J. Carter Co. of Holt has begun building a cement holder for the state’s Christmas tree on the lawn of the Capitol. Technically called a sleeve, the project will take the place of the temporary ones built each year. Work on the $22,000 project began Tuesday and is to be completed by Nov. 10.” Sadly, that sleeve is no longer in use. The state tree had to be relocated further forward due to the installation of bollards at the edge of the Capitol grounds in 2016 to stop terrorists from driving onto the lawn and doing terror-doughnuts. As a result the state tree has been smaller, a deficiency they have attempted to surmount with the addition of a gust-prone tree topper. What’s that you say? You’re wondering if I’m opinionated about this? Well, since you wrung it out of me, I will admit that I do not like the new tree placement. It looked much more dramatic in its old location. But I confess it is indeed a small price to pay to keep terrorists off the Capitol lawn.
This stamp is a little way west of the one above, on the other end of the parking lot.
The above stamp in context (lower left).
There are several stamps out in front of PHP, including the neater one in the first photo, but I have to admit that I find the haphazard placement of the stamps in the second two photos – especially the way the date managed to end up in there twice – amusing and even somewhat endearing.
This one is actually on a smaller (maybe half-sized) slab; sorry I didn’t get a contextual picture this time, but it’s a little bit west of the one above.
There are two of these stamps in front of the apartments across from Hunter Park, on the north side of East Kalamazoo Street between Holmes and Clifford. Although I pass those apartments all the time, I would not have been able to tell you what the complex was called until I looked it up this evening. Apparently they are the Beverly Place Apartments.
Both stamps are pretty worn. On one of them the name is harder to read but the date is clear. On the other, the name is fairly clear but the last digit of the date is illegible. Putting them together, I get Don Bates, 1987.
The stamp in the top photograph is located in the nearest almost-full slab in this one..
I haven’t found out anything about Don Bates. I will say I am surprised to see a 1987 stamp from someone besides Cantu & Sons (and there is at least one Cantu stamp on this block).
After my recent embarrassment at having a commenter point out that the “undated” Minnis & Ewer curb walk actually has a (faint) date, I resolved to take a closer look at other Minnis & Ewer stamps. On my walk tonight I passed one I had previously blogged about on Kalamazoo. I took a closer look and I am still confident it is undated (or at least that the date is completely worn off). But a short way further on I saw another one that did have a date, worn but readable. So much for my previous claim that “all the ones I’ve seen are undated” – apparently I was not looking hard enough. I was going to use that one for tonight’s entry, but something unexpected happened. I turned the corner northward on Pennsylvania and found another Minnis & Ewer stamp, this one with a very clear date. So that one will be tonight’s entry. (I’ll probably feature the other one another time.)
That date, August 1910, makes this the oldest dated Minnis & Ewer that I have found so far. It is on the east side of South Pennsylvania Avenue between Kalamazoo and Prospect.
Looking south on Penn toward Kalamazoo. The stamp is on the closest slab in this photo.
It seems I generalized too quickly about Minnis & Ewer leaving stamps undated. This is a beautifully preserved stamp for being 110 years old and the slab is in good shape too.
This stamp, and an even fainter one like it, can be found on the east side of Horton Street between Michigan and Jerome.
I can’t find out much about Henry Davis. I’ve only turned up brief ads for waterproofing and concrete work (“satisfaction guaranteed”) in The Lansing State Journal‘s classifieds from 1952 until about 1955. In 1952 the ads were for Henry Davis and Sons, but after that they were just plain Henry Davis. Perhaps the sons weren’t interested in the business after all.
Looking south on Horton toward Michigan. The stamp is on the nearest full slab.
The stamp is alongside the Gabriels Community Credit Union on the corner of Horton and Michigan. The credit union was originally set up to serve the nearby Catholic church, the Church of the Resurrection.
I am not sure whether to read this as “C. Wilkinson” (my initial impression) or “G. Wilkinson” but either way I haven’t been able to find anything out about the business.
This stamp is on the north side of East Kalamazoo Street between Magnolia and Hayford. Specifically, it is out in front of a community garden on the site of the former Paro Party Store (and another party store before that, and apparently a butcher’s shop when it was built in 1938), which was torn down in 2014. Despite some noise made to the contrary, everything that the Land Bank gets its hands on in this neighborhood turns into another community garden. The current occupants of this one have put up a sign dubbing it “Paro Party Garden.”
The Paro Party Garden.
Updated 1/5/21: Based on another one I have found, I am now pretty sure it is “C. Wilkinson.”
Joseph pointed out, in a comment on my recent allegedly undated Minnis & Ewer “curb walk,” that it was not undated. The date was just very faint, surprisingly so in contrast to the very deep impression of the name. I made a point to walk past it again today during the late-afternoon sun that does such a good job bringing out previously illegible marks and it was very clearly dated “6-11”, June 1911.
I am led to wonder whether all the “undated” Minnis & Ewer stamps I have seen around town were originally dated and I either overlooked the date for being so much fainter than the name, or else it has just worn off for the same reason. I will have to revisit some of them and see what I can see.
Meanwhile, I was wrong to say this was the only “curb walk” on the street. There is another one almost but not quite across the street from it. I will cover that one in a future update.
Today I took my walk at one of the magic times of day that draw out hard-to-read stamps. This stamp, on the east side of the 400 block of Regent Street (between Elizabeth and Kalamazoo), was previously so worn as to be totally illegible and almost invisible to me. But this evening the low angle of the sun made it give up its date quite clearly: 1954.
No such luck with the name, I’m afraid. It plainly starts with a J and after a space I think the next letter is an H. Past that I’m lost. I like the layout, with the smaller letters of the name forming a curve over the large, relatively ornate year.
Update 4/2/21: Now that I’ve seen another one (elsewhere on Regent), I am pretty sure this is J. Wilson.
This rather rustic-looking stamp is on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Clifford and Holmes (but much closer to Clifford – really between Clifford and Rosamond, if Rosamond were to extend up to Michigan). It is smaller in size than most stamps, and also faces sideways relative to traffic heading east-west along Michigan.
B & B Construction no longer appears to be in business, but I find that it was based in Holt during this time period, and also that it sponsored a men’s slow pitch softball team. As I’ve mentioned before, it seems like I turn up as many of these businesses on the sports page as anywhere else. The May 18, 1985 Lansing State Journal reported that B & B lost to Popeyes, 11-8. The last reference I see to a business that is probably the same B & B is in the May 18, 1998 LSJ classifieds: “We lay block, brick, do flatwork & pole barns. Free estimates, 20 yrs. exp.” (There is a B & B Concrete Placement in the Detroit area, but I assume that is a different business.)
Facing south toward the office.
This one is out in front of the offices of the Unity Spiritual Center church, one of those charming old house-turned-office buildings that pepper Michigan Avenue. The house was built in 1906.
This is a first for the blog, but one that I have been planning on dropping in eventually. This neat and clear Minnis & Ewer stamp looks like it could have been left there last week, but it could very well be over 100 years old, based on the age of the only dated Minnis & Ewer stamp I have found (1911). That in itself makes it interesting, but the real reason I am posting it is because it represents something I find curious and don’t yet understand, the existence of bits of pavement leading from the sidewalk to the curb. This one is on the 200 block of Regent Street, between Michigan and Kalamazoo, on the east side of the street.
I grew up calling the strip of lawn between the sidewalk and the curb “the extension” as that was what my parents called it. I still use it, but have come to realize no one else around me does. Google has let me know that this is because it is not just specific to Michigan but pretty well localized to Ann Arbor, where I grew up. It appears in the city code of a few towns in Michigan but only Ann Arborites actually seem to use it in conversation.
I don’t know what to call these bits of sidewalk that appear on extensions erratically around my neighborhood. I have used the keyword “curb walk” just so I can find this entry again later, but that’s something I just made up as a placeholder until I come up with something better.
I originally thought, when I saw a bit of pavement like this, that the owner must have had it installed so they had somewhere to set out their trash bin for collection without messing up the grass. On consideration this does not seem to entirely explain it, both because of how old this one likely is (though perhaps contemporary to the old house it’s in front of) and because on some streets they appear at regular intervals as though they were considered a functional part of the sidewalk when it was constructed. This is not one of those places and I believe this is the only one on the block. I rather wish I had one, especially if it had a cool old stamp like this. I would set a planter on it (but not on the stamp).
Update 10/11/20: Joseph has pointed out that there is a date on this one. I revisited it with better light and was able to see that it is dated “6-11” – June 1911.
