This is on the south side of Hickory Street between Jones and Holmes. I found it first over the winter, but the sidewalks were too slushy for me to have any hope of reading it. I waited to see if nicer weather would make it legible. Sadly, it did not. It was a beautiful day today and the sidewalk was as clear as it is going to get, and still the only legible part is the very clear date. There is a name there, but the only part I can read is an E at the beginning, and a suspected O at the end (perhaps part of Co.). Too bad.
Here’s something I ran across in the May 6, 1920, State Journal city council reports. A report by the Chief of Police and City Attorney was presented to the Council, giving the results of an investigation into – with apologies to Dave Barry, I am not making this up – the theft of a large amount of gravel from the surface of Ormond Street, resulting in a giant hole in the street. The report very fairly notes that “The removing of this gravel and making this large hole in the street constitutes a nuisance, and the city is under obligation to remove the same.”
Based on the police report and the depositions also printed with the article, the basic facts seem to be this: Louis Neller hired a teamster named William Riley to haul gravel from a spot near Ormond Street to be used in the construction of sidewalk in the Franklin Park Subdivision. (I am not sure where that subdivision is.) It turned out the gravel was unsuitable for sidewalk construction. According to Riley, Neller then directed him to take the gravel from Ormond Street, which Riley believed Neller was authorized to do. Riley’s brother Warren, who worked with him, backed up Riley’s version of the story in his own deposition. Ed Schneeberger (who has made previous appearances in this blog, including the one that led me to uncover the Saga of the Bum Walks) was involved with the sidewalk construction and stated that Neller visited the construction site frequently, and told Schneeberger that Riley was in his employ and hauling the gravel at his direction.
And now for the spicy part. This scandal involves more than just making a giant hole in a public street, because Louis Neller was in fact Alderman Neller at the time all this took place. The city charter forbids a council member from being interested in a contract with the city. Neller claimed that he did not have a contract with the city, but instead sold gravel to Riley who sold gravel to the city. Schneeberger’s and Riley’s depositions both contradict this. Riley states that he was merely paid hourly to acquire and haul gravel, and Neller had him turn over the city’s payment for the gravel. Neller, then, was ripping off gravel from the city and then selling it back to the city, according to this account. The investigation report indicates that this would make Neller criminally liable for violating the city charter.
Neller told the Chief of Police that “he had better proceed with some care” because the investigation might find that “a member of the Board of Police and Fire Commissioners” was also involved with inappropriate gravel procurement. By this he meant Frank L. Young of Young Brothers & Daley (who had previously been an alderman, and as such made an appearance in the Saga of the Bum Walks). The investigation found this accusation to be without merit.
“Huntley” is inscribed on the front walk of a house on the east side of South Fairview Avenue, between Elizabeth and Harton. The east side of this block – the 600 block – is entirely populated by nearly identical little Cape Cods. They are around 600 square feet and, according to the city, one-and-a-quarter stories. There are actually two different styles that alternate, one with a symmetrical front consisting of two windows and a centered door, the other with a single window and a door to one side. There are nine of these houses; a tenth on the corner of Harton was demolished in 2015. There is also another one just south of Harton, the only house on the east side of the 700 block. Curiously, they were built in 1941 and 1942, with the southern half of the houses having the later year. That’s a strange time to be building houses.
Despite their conformity, I really like them. Maybe it’s the coziness of a row of little cottages all lined up, or maybe it’s the way that their outline looks like the Platonic form of a house, or at least a child’s drawing of one.
The nearest house in this picture has the “Huntley” mark, at the sidewalk end of the front walk.
I haven’t been able to determine who Huntley was, though I presume a past resident of the house. While I can find references in old newspapers to people named Huntley living in Lansing, without addresses attached to them, I have no way to guess which, if any, this Huntley might have been.
This isn’t a sidewalk stamp and this time I don’t even have the excuse of it being on the sidewalk – it’s on the lawn extension (parkway, right of way, whatever you like to call it) at the northeast corner of Hayford Avenue and Elizabeth Street. It was just too cool not to share.
This stamp is on an orphaned driveway apron in front of one of the many vacant lots (now a community garden) near the south end of South Francis Avenue. It’s on the east side of the street, just south of where Harton Street would have passed through if it had not vanished from this block at some point. There is another driveway apron (also no longer attached to a driveway) one lot south of here that has the same stamp, but in worse shape.
I tried to uncover the date from under the layer of caked dirt, but it doesn’t look like it would be legible even if it were clean. It seems to end with a 1 but that’s the most that can be made from it with any confidence. I wasn’t able to find any plausible “Terry” that this could be, either.
I’ve posted this one before, a long time ago; it was among my earliest entries. But when I passed it recently, the light on it was so perfect that I thought it deserved another outing. The photo, while nice, doesn’t quite get across how perfectly the shadows fell on it; in person, it caused the optical illusion that the letters were raised instead of inset.
This stamp is at the northeast corner of Prospect Street and Foster Avenue.
This 2007 Eastlund stamp is on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Hosmer and 8th. There are many like it between Sparrow and the traffic circle at Washington Square. There was a big construction project that tore everything up in 2006, and Eastlund must have gotten the contract to put the sidewalk back. I chose this one to photograph mainly as an excuse to show you what it’s in front of: a set of ghost stairs.
These stairs are between the Classic Barber Shop (which is attached to Stober’s Bar) and Moriarty’s Pub. They lead to nothing more than a small green space. I suppose one could say that they serve as a street access for the side doors of the two adjacent buildings, but they’re really a relic of a house that once stood here.
I know about this house from perusing the Caterino Real Estate Image Collection, a wonderful resource that the Capital Area District Library has digitized. From 1963 to 1989, a local history enthusiast named David Caterino drove around taking photos of old buildings around Lansing, probably ones that he had reason to think would be demolished soon. On January 31, 1986 – thirteen and a half years before my arrival in Lansing – he took photos of a house at 808 East Michigan. The stairs can be seen in one photo, looking just as they look now. I wish Caterino had taken a wider view of the house from the street, but from what can be seen, it was a large and grand house, with unusually steep gables. An access stairway to the second story had been added in the rear, suggesting it spent its later years subdivided into apartments. In the rear view photo it is also evident how close it was building next door, currently Moriarty’s Pub.
I thought that was as much as I would be able to tell you about the house, but then I realized I could also check the Belon Real Estate Collection, a set of index cards that CADL has also digitized. The cards represent quick information for real estate agents about properties listed from the 1950s through early 1970s. There are a few listings for 808 East Michigan, listed together with 810, which then as today was a barber shop. There is a photo with them, which is very grainy from being copied but does give a better sense of how it looked from the street. The owner of both apparently lived in the apartment above the barber shop. If I’m reading things right, it failed to sell in 1961 at a listing price of $55,000, then in 1964 the same owner tried and failed again at $47,500, and then once again in 1971 at $62,000. Unfortunately, the year built is given in one card as 1946 (this can’t mean the house and must be the barber shop) and in another as N/A. I would guess it was a late 19th century house. According to the 1961 card, it was divided into five apartments: one two-bedroom and two one-bedrooms downstairs, and one two-bedroom and one one-bedroom upstairs.
This is a minor curiosity that I noticed at the southeast corner of East Michigan and Mifflin Avenues, in front of the Muffler Man shop (which I have learned was a General Tire location from the 1950s through at least 1989). There is a length of sidewalk leading north to a curb cut, as though to allow pedestrians to cross Michigan.
What makes this curious is that there is no corresponding curb cut on the other side. The sidewalk across the road does not extend to the street. So it appears that the south side of the street was designed to allow someone to cross, but the north side was not.
I’m not sure how many people will find this as interesting as I do. What fascinates me about it is the way it reflects some series of decisions that must have made sense when they were made, and which depended on things that did not come to pass, or reflected conditions that have since altered. Alas, such historical minutiae are most likely unrecorded.
One possible influence on the situation is the fact that the south side, with the curb cut, belongs to Lansing Township, and the north side to Lansing. This doesn’t explain anything, exactly, but the correlation may be significant. It is out of character for Lansing Township to have more sidewalk than Lansing, but Lansing Township’s sidewalks (when they exist) are very erratic and inscrutable. The sidewalk starting at this corner and continuing east for a couple of blocks until it disappears is inset much further than the blocks to the west, and this again reflects the border, which divides Lansing from Lansing Township at Mifflin on this side of Michigan. This gives the buildings here an especially large lawn extension, deep enough that the late, lamented Theio’s had its outdoor seating on it. As a result, the stretch of sidewalk that leads to the curb cut is especially long and prominent, and must have been installed for a reason.
This is the last of the stamps I collected in my sweep of Downer between Woodruff and Hopkins. This one is on the east side of the street.
The block turned out to be a disappointment. Most of the sidewalk looked to be the same age and composition, but was unstamped, suggesting that none of it was properly marked when the subdivision was developed. Almost all of the newer-looking blocks are Able 2002 stamps like this one, except for the 2019 Eastlund stamps on the corner of Able and Hopkins and one extremely worn Moore and Trosper stamp from (if I read it right) the 1990s.
On my recent sweep of Downer Street between Woodruff and Hopkins, I found this gas utility cover on the west side of the street.
I’m disappointed that Mueller doesn’t have a company history on their Web site, just this brief description: “Since 1857, the Mueller name has become known for innovative water distribution products of superior quality, many of which have become industry standards. This leadership position has resulted in our valves or hydrants being specified in the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the United States. We also provide distribution products for the natural gas industry.”
Fortunately, they do have a Wikipedia page, and from there I learn that the company was started by Hieronymous Mueller in Decatur, Illinois, as “H. Mueller, Gun Shop.” He then expanded into sewing machine and clock repairs. Eventually, he shifted focus to plumbing supplies and sold off the gun and sporting goods side of the business. The business sadly left Decatur in 2010 and moved their headquarters to Chattanooga, Tennessee (the location of one of the other companies they had acquired back in the 1930s).
