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News tidbit from 1949

I found a small tidbit in the October 4, 1949 [Lansing] State Journal:

The city council Monday night agreed to pay for the expense of boring about 350 holes in downtown sidewalks for use by merchants in displaying flags on standards in front of their stores. Merchants previously had asked that the holes be put in the sidewalks back from the curb so they could display Michigan State college banners and American flags. 

Most of the sidewalks downtown appear to be of recent vintage, bearing stamps from the 2000s or later. Still, I wonder if I can find any sidewalks downtown still showing evidence of these flagpole holes. I will have to check next time I’m downtown.

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Albion Municipal Code on Sidewalks

I haven’t had time to get any sidewalk stamps recently so I’m going to do my usual stopgap post checking municipal ordinances for rules about sidewalk markings. I thought I would check out the municipality outside metro Lansing that I have done the most stamps from, because family lives there: Albion.

Although there are some stamped sidewalks in Albion, they are very infrequent. Accordingly, I predicted that I would find nothing in the city code about marking new sidewalk construction. I was right. The Albion code on sidewalk construction is mostly the usual stuff about how far it needs to be set back from the street, how thick the slab should be, who pays for repairs (as usual, the adjacent property owner), and so on. I did note a couple of unique elements. One is that it specifies the PSI that the sidewalk has to be capable of withstanding: “All concrete used in sidewalk construction shall, 28 days after placement, be capable of resisting a pressure of 3,500 pounds per square inch without failure.” The other is that there is a whole section devoted to doors and gratings in the sidewalk: “No door shall be placed in any sidewalk unless the design and specifications therefor shall be approved by the director of public works. No open iron grating or other open devices or any device containing glass shall be placed in or used as the surface of any sidewalk.” Albion is hardly a city I would expect to be riddled with sidewalk grates, yet the penalties for violating this suggest it was a big problem at one time: you get 30 days to remove the door, grate, or window after being notified of the violation, after which it is a separate violation for each day it remains.

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Oakland Dr., East Lansing, Able, 2017

This is the newest stamp I saw on my recent brief (and very cold) walk on Oakland Drive in East Lansing. It’s on the west side of the street between Grand River and Roseland. The Able stamp is ordinary enough, but it’s a date style I don’t think I’ve seen them use, or at least, not so often.

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Oakland Dr., East Lansing, Able Concrete, 1995

This is another stamp I collected during my brief, very old, walk on Oakland Drive in East Lansing last week. It’s from the west side of the street, a short way north of Grand River Avenue.

It’s not all that interesting to look at, but it is a relatively uncommon variation of Able Concrete stamp. (Able stamps are not quite as common as Cantu and Son[s], but they are up there.)

The stamp is near the bottom right of the frame. This view also shows the mix of 1920s Tudor-or-cottage-style and midcentury ranch homes on the block.
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Oakland Dr., East Lansing, Eastlund Concrete, 1975

Sometimes when I’m driving around town I’ll pick a neighborhood street at random to divert into to look for sidewalk stamps. This time I was driving home from the Meridian Mall on Grand River Avenue and made a snap decision to turn into a street I had never noticed the existence of before, Oakland Drive.

The street was an odd mixture of midcentury ranch homes and 1920s English cottage and Tudor style. It’s a narrow street, with sidewalk erratically appearing and disappearing on both sides. In front of one of the older homes I found this Eastlund Concrete stamp dated 1975. It’s on the west side of the street between Grand River and Roseland.

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Construction Permits 1923-1992

I have no sidewalk stamp for you today, so in lieu of that, I’m sharing a neat local history resource that has been recently added to the Capital Area District Library’s digital collection. It consists of scans of the ledger in which construction permits were recorded from 1923 until 1992, organized by street name. Amazingly, the book itself changed very little in that time, with each line still handwritten in 1992 much as in 1923. I was able to find the original construction permit for my house, in among a veritable flurry of building going on in the late 1920s on my street. This is probably the least sidewalk-related post I have yet made, but it does connect with the interest in local history that this blog has fostered in me, particularly the small-potatoes stuff like when a particular house was built and how a given block has changed over time.

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Regent St., Cantu & Sons, date obscured

As has been noted here before, I like the way that sidewalk stamps lend texture to the snow when it has freshly fallen on the sidewalk. So, since it was too snowy to find anything interesting tonight, enjoy a couple of glamour shots. No doubt this is a Cantu & Sons stamp, probably from 1987 or 1988, but I didn’t want to disturb the snow to find out. This is from the east side of Regent Street just north of Kalamazoo.

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N. Foster Ave., B. Traverse, 1960

Here’s a B. Traverse stamp from right nearby the illegible one I showed you last time, on the west side of North Foster Avenue between Michigan and Vine. I felt like I had to take a picture of something legible that day, so this is what you get.

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N. Foster Ave., Illegible

I returned to an old-looking but illegible stamp I had previously done in 2021, hoping that the time of day or the wet pavement might have made it visible. Unfortunately, I still can’t make it out (except for “Lansing, Mich”), although fussing with the contrast a bit made it tantalizingly close.

The paired stamp a bit north is equally illegible, if not more so. These are on the west side of North Foster Avenue between Michigan and Vine.

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City of Grand Ledge Sidewalk Code

Yes, it’s another exciting installment of my occasional series, “What municipalities in greater Lansing have sidewalk marking requirements?” Today I visited Grand Ledge’s municipal code and for a sidewalk fan like me, at least, it was a good read. That’s because it’s extremely detailed, perhaps the most of any that I’ve read so far, about issues like the proper width, grading, distance from the road, etc., of sidewalks, as well as assigning responsibility for the cost. It also has a section stipulating the conditions under which a sidewalk will be “presumed to be defective,” as follows:

  1. There is a vertical displacement of three-fourths of an inch or greater;
  2. There is a crack greater than one-half inch wide;
  3. If any section is spalled, chipped or gouged over 25 percent or more of its surface area; or
  4. If the sidewalk or non-motorized pathway slopes exceed those contained in the standards enumerated in section 34-3(c)(1) through (4);
  5. If improper or insufficient drainage causes water to collect on the surface of the sidewalk or non-motorized pathway;
  6. If any obstructions encroach within one foot of either side or within eight feet above the surface of the sidewalk or non-motorized pathway; or
  7. If there are more than two cracks in any five-foot section of any sidewalk or non-motorized pathway.

I’m not sure why some of those provisions get an “or” on the end and others don’t. It looks like an oversight. Anyway, I think by the standards above, something like 25% of the sidewalk in my neighborhood would be presumed defective!

Ultimately, though, the sidewalk code of Grand Ledge is disappointing. The detailed, strict rules in it got me thinking that they would also be the kind of town that would want sidewalks to be stamped. Alas, it is not so. I can’t find anything in the code that requires sidewalk markings.