This stamp is on the east side of Bingham Street between Michigan and Eureka. No doubt it dates from the construction of the parking garage that it’s in front of. This was once the site of Bingham Street School (or just “Bingham School” as it seems to have been called in later years). Lansing apparently named all its early elementary schools after the residential streets they bordered, hence Foster Avenue School and Allen Street School. Bingham Street School holds a small but memorable place in my own personal history, as it was my polling location from when I moved to town through 2012. Thus, although I had no other connection with it, I was sad when it got knocked down. It looked so much like my own elementary school that going inside always triggered nostalgia.

Bingham (Street) School closed in 2012 and was sold to Sparrow Hospital, who wanted the land to expand their cancer center. The school was demolished in July 2013 and if you want to see sad photos of the vacant rooms shortly before demolition – and the rubble afterward – you can find them on the still-extant Facebook page for the school. The local neighborhood was dismayed over the loss of green space, and that leads to another story for another entry, eventually. As for my polling place, it moved across the street to the Pilgrim Congregational Church, and though they seem like nice folks, voting in a church has never felt quite right to me.

Fessler & Bowman is a bigger company than usually gets featured here. They were founded in 1963 by Don Fessler and George Bowman and originally did residential flatwork and basement walls, but have subsequently become a large commercial contractor. Their corporate headquarters are in Flushing, Michigan, but they also have regional offices in Louisiana, North Carolina, and Tennessee.