I walked out to the neighborhood I call Eastmost in order to collect a stamp I’d noted on some previous outing. I was foiled in this plan by a layer of snow covering the area where I believed the stamp to be. I gave up and started walking back. It was snowing, and even the relatively clear areas were being steadily covered. I decided I had better stop at the first sidewalk I came to that had a light coating and get to work finding something there.

I love how it looks when the snow fills in the stamp.

So that’s what I did. This Isabella Corp. stamp is in front of a pawn shop (it just calls itself “SECOND HAND STORE” on the awning, though the Internet tells me it’s properly H & M Discount Second Hand Store) on the north side of East Michigan Avenue between Francis and Foster. Before the building was H & M, it was another, very similar-looking pawn shop. It was built in 1952 and its first occupant seems to have been Associates Discount Corp. I went to find out more about them and Googling their name got me pages of caselaw references – usually them suing someone but occasionally someone suing them. I learned that they were an auto finance company, so apparently the building has stayed in the loan business.

I walked along this stretch of Michigan dragging a boot at the top and bottom of each sidewalk slab until I uncovered something. I wonder what the next person to walk by made of it.

Prior to becoming Associates Discount Corp., the address belonged to Jack Royeton Inc., a Kaiser-Frazer car dealer. Once upon a time, Eastmost was the dealership district. It’s amazing to think what it that must have been like.