Posted on by bunnyhugger

Hall of Shame: new sidewalk behind Eastern HS

This stretch of sidewalk is new, but unstamped and undated, which is why it has been filed under “Hall of Shame.” The fact that it is not adjoining a public street probably exempts it from the city’s code on sidewalk marking, but I wanted to catalogue it for the historical value of recording when it was created.

The south end of the new sidewalk.

It branches off from the previously-existing sidewalk behind Eastern High School and the Armory, heading to the east along the edge of the Eastern grounds, eventually meeting up with Saginaw. It passes by a small sidewalk that cuts over to North Clemens Avenue at Fernwood Street. That sidewalk has been torn out (don’t worry, it had no stamps on it; I had checked in the past). My understanding is that it will be reconstructed to serve as part of the East Side Connector, a bicycle route between the east side to downtown.

The north end of the new path. The dirt area is where the old sidewalk from Clemens was removed (it heads left/east from here, through the fence) and I am standing on the asphalt path that continues north.

The sidewalk stops at the point where the link to Clemens was (and will be) and past that the path becomes asphalt. I don’t know, but I am guessing that this is the point when it becomes part of the East Side Connector.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

Hall of Shame: New Sidewalk, Prospect St.

This is certainly the newest sidewalk I have featured here. It’s in front of an apartment building on the south side of Prospect Street between Bingham and Pennsylvania.

How do I know it’s the newest? Because yesterday I walked past it and it looked like this:

I was delighted by this discovery. It meant I could walk back again the next day and see the freshest stamp yet. Who would it be? One of the contractors I already know like old friends, or a new kid on the block? I could hardly wait to find out.

Imagine my disappointment when I returned to find a beautifully smooth and fresh new sidewalk – unstamped. Into the Hall of Shame with you!

The previous sidewalk was straight, and heaved up severely by the tree’s roots. Looks like the tree sustained a little bit of damage in the battle, but won the war: the sidewalk has ceded the territory.

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Shepard St., Leavitt & Starck, 2021

Here’s a new one – both a new contractor for me and a new date. It’s on the west side of Shepard Street north of Kalamazoo, alongside the former Allen Neighborhood Center, which is currently transforming into a mixed use development called Allen Place.

This stamp is on the south end of the new sidewalk.

Leavitt & Starck Excavating, Inc., is based in Ovid. It was founded in 2011 by Dean Leavitt and Tom Starck. They must be involved in the Allen Place project.

The sidewalk curves at one point to avoid tree roots.
This is midway along. Oddly, there is no stamp to mark the north end of the new stretch of sidewalk.