This stamp, from the south side of Marcus Street between Clemens and Fairview, is a typical example of a Cantu & Sons stamp with the 1987 date corrected to 1988. There are a lot of ones like that around the neighborhood. The real reason I photographed it, though, was the odd graffiti, added as though an addendum to the contractor stamp: “The Butterfly.”
There is something else scrawled in the corner to the left, but I wasn’t able to make it out in the current light.
This graffiti on the east side of North Fairview Avenue between Saginaw and Grand River got my attention because of the lettering style. Most sidewalk graffiti is just plain lines. This one’s hollow block lettering is unique and ostentatious. The grass clippings from a recently mown lawn were giving it a little extra definition.
I didn’t notice the + at first and thought it was just four letters, TKSD, but when I looked at my photo later I realized it was a declaration of love: “TK + SD.”
This fading graffiti is on the driveway apron of a house on the 400 block of Regent Street (between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth). I often find that such graffiti reflects who lived in the adjacent house at the time, though the research I’m able to do online doesn’t tell me who that was. I do find that in the 1960s, there was a police officer in Lansing named Thomas Gallie. I don’t have any way to connect him with this and it may be a relative or just a sheer coincidence.
I know only a couple of things about Gallie. One is that he was the defendant in a lawsuit, as reported in the February 2, 1966, Battle Creek Enquirer. (Interestingly I was not able to find anything in the [Lansing] State Journal about it.) An MSU senior sued Gallie and three other police officers for brutality, alleging that he was beaten at the police station. The student was later found not guilty of drunken driving, which he claimed he was charged with as a ploy to cover up the beating. The next reference I can find to Gallie is in the February 21, 1968, State Journal, in a summary of recent business of the Police Board. It briefly mentions that Gallie has submitted his resignation in order to take a job with the state, and notes that he is the only officer in the department with a master’s degree.
Did you miss me yet? I’m back with some graffiti, dated October 2019, from a vacant lot on the 100 block of Regent Street, between Michigan and Kalamazoo. Sorry it got a little cut off on the right. The bright sunlight made it hard for me to see what I was doing.
This is in front of a vacant lot which used to have one of the houses I thought of as “the Triplets,” three similar Dutch colonial houses in a row, all built in 1908. The Triplets were not actually identical. The one in the middle – the nearer home in this photo – has to be considered a fraternal triplet. In addition to having a different arrangement of windows in the front, it is actually quite different seen from the side. The two on either side of it were closer to identical, but were actually mirrored, judging from the arrangement of windows and placement of the front door. One of those triplets – my favorite one because it was pink – is gone, the victim of the infamous 2013 ice storm. A large tree limb fell on its roof, significantly damaging it. For a long time afterward it had a tarp laid over the hole, but after months went by and no work was done it became obvious that it was done for. It was demolished in 2015.
This lot is now owned by Dave Muylle, who owns quite a lot of that block of Regent. He also owns the middle triplet. Other Muylle properties in the vicinity include Regent Place, the Regent Arms, and the Cottage Lane project (a cluster of small homes around a common area between Regent and Leslie).
There is a large and somewhat mysterious vacant lot on the northeast corner of East Kalamazoo Street and South Foster Avenue. The Kalamazoo side of it is lined with a row of handsome evergreens, and that’s where you can find this series of three graffiti-covered blocks. I assume the number on one of them represents a date, ’95, but I can’t be sure. They are facing sideways from the perspective of a pedestrian, as though meant to be read by the evergreens. Here they are, presented from east to west.
This small, almost modest bit of graffiti is in front of Bill Leech’s Repair Service on the north side of East Michigan Avenue between Clemens and Fairview. I am going to assume that Mr. Leech himself did this, absent evidence to the contrary.
Bill Leech’s Web site unfortunately does not give a history of the company and I can’t find much about them searching the Lansing State Journal. They have certainly been located here since before I moved to the city in 1999, and Open Corporates gives their incorporation date as October 19, 1983 (under the name Bill’s Appliance Service Center, Inc).
I really like the midcentury look of the storefront with its stone siding and angled doorway. According to the city’s parcel records, it was built in 1950. Prior to that, in the 1940s, there was… any guesses? Anyone? Yes, you are correct: there was a car dealer here, Ron LeButt Auto Sales. I first see an ad for Modern TV Center in the October 12, 1954, State Journal. The latest ad for Modern TV that I can find ran on August 1, 1970.
This bit of graffiti is on the east side of Regent Street’s 300 block, between Michigan and Kalamazoo. The date is hard to ascertain. The first digit looks to be a 9, but the second? Up close it looks like a crooked 1. From a distance it seems to resolve to a 3, but it’s hard to be sure that isn’t a trick of the light.
References to various Glatz family members at this address start popping up occasionally in the (Lansing) State Journal in 1956. The last one I can find is in 1964. On April 8, it was reported that “Mr. and Mrs. Noble L. Bell of 1727 Bailey St. East Lansing, will host a rehearsal dinner Friday evening honoring their son, Danny Lowell Bell, and his fiance, Miss Margaret Louise Glatz…. Miss Glatz is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Harry J. Glatz of 307 Regent St.” Elsewhere, the same issue lists recent marriage licenses, among them Bell and Glatz’s. There Margaret’s address is also given as 307 Regent.
Because the online parcel records for Lansing only have sales records from around 2000 on, I don’t know when the Glatz family left the house. I wonder what they would think of it now that the current landlord has replaced the entire front yard with gravel so the tenants can use it for parking.
It’s not clear whether this stamp on the west side of Shepard Street (south of Elizabeth, before the I-496 dead end) is a contractor’s mark or graffiti. It’s done so crudely that I’d be inclined to say graffiti, except that it reminds me of this handwritten L. Miller stamp, which I have reason to believe is a contractor’s mark. The last name is definitely Wagner. The first name is rather obscure but might be Dan or Dave.
I can’t find anything about a contractor named Wagner working in the area in the right sort of time period, so if this is a contractor’s stamp it’s a mysterious one.
This neatly-rendered smiley face often adds a note of whimsy to my walks. It is on the east side of South Clemens Avenue between Michigan and Prospect.
This is a Barnhart & Son (just the singular Son this time, though other stamps from 1986 have plural Sons) stamp on the west side of North Fairview Avenue between Fernwood and Saginaw.
The variation in name is interesting, but what really catches my eye when I walk this block is some graffiti in the adjacent slab. It’s interesting to note that although this particular sidewalk must have been poured in the 1990s (I think that says 1996, though it’s pretty messy), Red Buddy’s birth year matches the date on several nearby Barnhart stamps.
