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E. Kalamazoo St., MacKenzie Co., 2022

I walked into the construction area on East Kalamazoo Street again to check out other sidewalk changes. This time I went to the north side of the street, and found this stamp near the northwest corner of Mifflin Avenue, just inside Lansing city limits. This is a particularly crisp impression and should last a good while, which of course is what I like to see in a sidewalk stamp!

A nearby trailer also confirmed the identity of the contractor. As I previously guessed, it is indeed E.T. MacKenzie, headquartered in Grand Ledge.

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E. Kalamazoo St., MacKenzie Co., 2022

This is across Mifflin Avenue from the one posted in the last two entries. It’s on the southeast corner of Mifflin and East Kalamazoo Street, in other words, just outside the border of the city of Lansing, making it a rare example of a stamp in Lansing Township. As part of the recent construction on Kalamazoo, they have put in a new curb cut on this side with a single block of pavement. No further sidewalk has been laid yet and I am guessing it won’t be, since there wasn’t any there before, just a ramshackle parking lot that seems to belong to University Foreign Car across the street.

This is upside-down because I’m standing at the curb cut and looking east to show where the tiny bit of sidewalk ends.
This stake is actually back on the west side of Mifflin, but I photographed it to show that what I keep calling a “curb cut,” they apparently call a “sidewalk opening.”
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E. Kalamazoo St., MacKenzie Co., RIP

Last time I posted the blog’s newest stamp to date, a MacKenzie 2022 stamp from the southwest corner of East Kalamazoo Street and Mifflin Avenue. Today I am posting the fastest stamp removal I have ever seen. Last night I walked past to discover that the brand-new slab bearing the remarkably short-lived MacKenzie stamp had inexplicably been removed.

Why would they put in new sidewalk during a construction project that hadn’t finished yet, only to tear it right back out? I have no solution for this mystery.

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East Jordan Iron Works manhole cover, E. Kalamazoo St.

Here’s another sidewalkless sidewalk blog update, from the southwest corner of Kalamazoo and Magnolia. This seems to be the newest style of manhole covers around Lansing, and they look quite spiffy. They depict the city seal (or the city flag, as it’s the same image). The city’s flag and seal were adopted in 1994, replacing the previous, rather obscure flag. No one seems quite sure what the old flag even meant. It depicts a man felling a barren tree by a log cabin, with other bare stumps nearby, and a sunset in the background. The best explanation I have seen is that it depicted the sun setting on the pioneer era. Many found it to be a downbeat image (though it was surely not intended as such) so it is perhaps unsurprising that it was replaced with the current image, which, while inoffensive, also feels a bit too slick and corporate.

The manhole cover’s inner ring identifies its origin as our old friend “East Jordan Iron Works – East Jordan, Michigan, USA.”

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E. Kalamazoo St., “Electric” cover

This manhole cover is on the northeast corner of East Kalamazoo and Shepard Streets. There are several of this style around the neighborhood. When I first stopped to look at it, my brain was slow to make sense of the circular inscription; I could not readily orient myself to find the start and end of the word. Unfortunately it is just “ELECTRIC,” and there is no maker’s mark on this one.

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Sidewalk construction, E. Kalamazoo St.

I’ve been watching this sidewalk being replaced in front of the Allen Place (née Allen Neighborhood Center) development, on the north side of East Kalamazoo Street between Allen and Shepard. I’m pretty sure it’s going to end up being a Hall of Shame candidate, since even more has gone in since I took this photo and there is no sign of any stamp yet, but I suppose until it’s completely finished I can’t say so definitively. Anyway, it’s still interesting to get to see a new sidewalk slab from the side. I wonder if they’re always this thick.

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E. Kalamazoo St., chalk art

Walking on the south side of East Kalamazoo Street, between Pennsylvania and Bingham, I found a hopscotch court that someone had drawn in chalk. I was heading west, the correct direction to appreciate it, as it started with an enticement to “Have fun!” and then concluded with the valediction “Have a good day.”

I love that kids still draw hopscotch, because I love keeping folk practices alive, something kids seem especially good at. I wonder, though, whether kids still play hopscotch. While it is not uncommon for me to come across a hopscotch court on the sidewalk, I have never seen hopscotch actually being played. I wonder if kids in Lansing play the game or just draw the board, ritualistically re-enacting something they have seen older kids do. I don’t know any kids to ask.

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E. Kalamazoo St., Graffiti, 1995?

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.

I guess Woz had a lot of free time in the 1990s.
Mondo Pavement is one of the least remembered of the mondo films.
Looking east, along the row of trees that unnecessarily screen an empty plot of grass from Kalamazoo traffic. There must be a story here.
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E. Kalamazoo St., illegible name, undated

This is on a driveway apron on the south side of East Kalamazoo Street between Leslie and Shepard. It caught my eye because I didn’t recognize it as one of the usuals, but unfortunately despite my best efforts I wasn’t able to read it.

I believe I have this oriented the right way up, based on the “T” I think I see in it, but I can’t be sure. If I’m right, then it faces the street.

A look at the driveway from the east side. The stamp is in the middle of the apron.