This stamp is from Lathrop Street south of Elizabeth, on the west side of the street. The sidewalk ends here. On the east side of the street it continues, as Lathrop curves around to meet Allen. Unlike other streets nearby that were truncated by the construction of I-496 in the late 1960s, Lathrop would always have ended more or less here, because Stabler Park lay to the south. The turn that joins Lathrop to Allen is now a bit diagonal, in parallel to 496, whereas it used to be more squared off (as I can see on HistoricAerials.com). The result is that while the last house on the east side has survived, the last two on the west side were 496 casualties.
The stamp is on the very last piece of sidewalk on the west side, and I find it odd that it extends a little past the driveway for no apparent reason. Since it’s dated 1988, it was laid long after any houses existed to the south. My guess is that it marks the lot line. The doomed house that used to be next door to this one, 628 Lathrop, sold in 1957 for $6,800 cash. The real estate card notes that it had a dark room in the basement.
A view of the stamp from the south. It’s on the closest edge, facing this way.
Past the fence is I-496, but once upon a time Stabler Park would have been over there.
I have no sidewalks to share with you today, so instead I’ll share a comic with you that my husband shared with me. He follows the Classic Comic Strips Twitter, and pointed out to me that they had shared the following “Outbursts of Everett True” comic.
“The Outbursts of Everett True” by A.D. Condo.
My husband occasionally likes to share examples of “The Outbursts of Everett True” with me and from these encounters I think I have gotten a feel for what it’s about. It always starts with Mr. True getting riled up about someone’s rude, obnoxious, or otherwise antisocial behavior, and then ends with him pummeling the offender. I think the point is to allow the readers to vicariously live out their fantasies of setting ne’er-do-wells straight.
According to Classic Comic Strips, this strip is dated 6/10/08, making it a touch younger than the oldest sidewalk markings I’ve found in Lansing. One imagines that so-called “artificial stone sidewalks” were coming to Everett True’s neighborhood soon enough. In Lansing, the installation and maintenance of sidewalks is the responsibility of a property owner, and in the old days, the City Council did formally compel owners to have sidewalks constructed. As is true in many cities, it is still technically the homeowner’s responsibility to pay for sidewalk repairs in front of their house in Lansing, but in practice it appears that they have not been charging homeowners for sidewalk work in recent years.
I stopped to check out the newly-renovated Speedway on East Michigan Avenue (the north side, between Clemens and Regent), which was on the eve of reopening. This had previously been famous as the only Speedway with no canopy. The canopy was torn off around 2010 when it became unsafe. I guess their new masters, 7-11, took one look at that and said “What the hell?” Anyway, I noticed this new storm sewer cover amidst the fresh asphalt.
What, no East Jordan Iron Works/EJ? Since the URL is conveniently provided right on the cover (I’m sure that won’t ever age badly) I checked out AquaShield Inc’s Web site. They are a lot younger than EJ, as they have a banner celebrating their 20th anniversary in 2019. Unlike EJ, they don’t just make the iron covers, but offer entire stormwater systems. Their About page doesn’t give much history, but they are based in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
I have to issue a partial retraction to my Hall of Shame entry on the Allen Place project (on the north side of East Kalamazoo Street between Shepard and Allen). I had believed that no sidewalk marking was left anywhere on the Kalamazoo side of the building when the new sidewalk was laid. Recently, however, I discovered that there is one solitary stamp in the expanse, located not in the main sidewalk path but on the pavement next to the curb, oddly facing the curb instead of the building. The stamp is, in fact, right in the area that I saw being installed and photographed for a previous entry.
Let’s say I will put an asterisk by the Hall of Shame entry. I still think there should be more stamps for a project this big. By convention, stamps are placed at the start and end of a run of new sidewalk, though that is not required in Lansing (the code here merely says they must stamp wherever they are directed to by the Director of Public Works).
This is a typical “second style” DPW stamp from the west side of South Foster Avenue between Michigan and Prospect. I actually took the photo not primarily because of the stamp, but rather because it is another example of those odd geometric markings that I do not know the purpose of. It is similar to, though not as large as, the ones on Jerome Street. I hope I eventually figure out what the deal is with them.
When I reached the second anniversary, I decided to consider changing the blog’s update schedule again. It was originally updated daily, but I cut back to three times a week as I began to run out of new stamps within my daily walk radius. With another year gone by, it’s become apparent that I once again need to make an adjustment to match how many new sidewalk-related tidbits I’m finding on a regular basis. The fact that I am working more hours than I was a year ago factors into this decision too. So, beginning this week, I will be posting each Monday and Friday.
Recently, my husband drew my attention to the fact that some sidewalk had just been marked with spray paint by a city employee. I looked over in that direction – the east side of the 400 block of Regent Street – and immediately knew which bit of walk it was. It’s a spot where two slabs have subsided where they meet, leaving a V-shaped valley. It has been a hazard to me on my frequent walks around here because it fills with mud in the summer and ice in the winter and in both conditions it has been the cause of my slipping more than once.
In this photo, the marked area is past the driveway seen center-left. Parked on the street to the right is the city vehicle responsible.
It would be nice to think that the spray paint markings mean that the walk is slated to be replaced soon. In my experience, that is not necessarily true. Often they seem to paint trip hazards just to make them visible, without actually doing anything to rectify them. I’m sure it’s on a list to deal with eventually, but “eventually” can be a long time.
I am a little surprised to see it marked, though, because there are a lot worse sidewalks in the area for being trip hazards. The street trees have heaved up blocks of cement in countless places around the east side and I’ve taken hard falls from tripping on them at night more times than I care to remember.
Yes, I know. MacKenzie Co. 2022 is the new Cantu & Sons 1987. Don’t worry, I’m almost done with the new construction. This is a new curb cut at the southwest corner of East Kalamazoo and Charles Streets. There is a corresponding new one on the other side of Charles.
Previously, there were no curb cuts or any sidewalk here, just parking lots for Gerber Collision and NAPA. The Gerber lot, which is the one pictured here, had parking barriers at the edge of it, then a grassy strip, then a curb, so it was not pedestrian friendly. Good for whomever decided that should be changed. It does appear to have cost Gerber a little bit of their parking lot.
I owe an apology to Lansing Township, or at least to whomever is behind all the sidewalk work that is going on in the construction zone on Kalamazoo between Francis and Howard. I wrote with great disapproval (and the deployment of a brand new tag, wtf) about the apparent decision to stop short of joining the new sidewalk up with existing sidewalk on the other side of an unpaved driveway, just north of Dagwood’s parking lot on Howard Street.
The grassy remnant of a driveway on the west side of Howard marks the former site of a house, a very small house in a style typical of the neighborhood, probably built in 1910, if I’m reading the property records right. By the time it was demolished (I think it was last year, or thereabouts) It was in decline so long that my ex-husband and I used to refer to it as “The Scariest House in Lansing,” and we split up in 2007. This is actually a misnomer for two reasons: there are much spookier houses around town, and it’s not in Lansing (this is Lansing Township, remember). We just saw it so often coming and going to the freeway or visiting Dagwood’s that its long, slow deterioration was hard to miss. At one point, Dagwood’s put up a new fence along that edge of the property, and we joked about a dive bar having to put up a fence to block the view of the neighbors rather than the other way around.
Anyway, the poor sad house is gone now. But what’s this?
I went back there last night and I must eat my words, or at least the letters WTF: they have laid sidewalk across the gap, and actually a bit past it, I guess replacing some degraded walk in front of the vacant lot. The sidewalk now stretches unbroken until… the edge of the last lot before Prospect Street. In other words, there is still a strange gap in the sidewalk, leaving just one house of this block of Howard without a front sidewalk. I could understand it if the house faced Prospect, but it faces Howard. I suppose they decided it was outside the scope of this project.
Another interesting note is that they have dug out the area where the curb cut for the old driveway is, suggesting it will receive a proper driveway apron next, even if there is no house for it to serve and it seems unlikely there will be anytime soon. There is actually another house on this same lot, but it’s a bizarre situation. The other house is strangely featureless and looks more like a shed than a house. According to Lansing Township’s property records online it is 480 square feet – which I believe – and was built in 1910 – which I am more skeptical of. It seems to have been maintained reasonably well even as the house up front was left rotting for years. It used to be completely hidden behind the main house and so I didn’t even know it existed until I started poking around the property records. The new driveway probably isn’t there to serve this second house, since access to that one seems to be via an alley behind Dagwood’s.
Yes, I’m still mining the construction area on the east end of Kalamazoo, in Lansing Township. This new sidewalk is in front of the former East Side Foreign Car building on the south side of East Kalamazoo Street between Charles and Detroit Streets. Previously, there was none here, just a thin strip of lawn in front of a white picket fence.
This stamp is at the curb, facing toward the road.
A look at the bus stop, currently closed due to the construction.
In addition to the new sidewalk, they have installed a concrete area at the curb (what I have sometimes referred to as a “curb walk” since I don’t know a proper name for it) for people to stand on while waiting at the bus stop. Previously, people waiting for the bus would have to stand on the little strip of grass in front of the curb. This is a much more hospitable bus stop.
The new sidewalk continuing east past the old East Side Foreign Car building. There was no sidewalk here before.
