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Drury Ln., E. Schneeberger, 1925

Here’s another one from Drury Lane between Ballard Street and High Street, this time from the south side of the street. It’s very worn and the mud doesn’t help either, but I am pretty sure it is an E. Schneeberger stamp. There is also a paired stamp a few steps away, but that one was even harder to see due to slush.

Here’s an even closer view of the stamp.

Another interesting thing about this stamp is that the house it is in front of is the only house that currently has an address on Drury Lane. Drury is a small, one-block street to begin with, and it has several vacant lots. The only other house that appears to face the street rather curiously has a Ballard address, as previously reported. So the occupants of this house have the unique pride of a Drury Lane address. Personally, I think it would be neat to be the only house with an address on a specific street.

The stamp is on the closest (full) sidewalk block.

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Drury Ln., Cantu Const., undated

This one is just a couple of paces further west from Wednesday’s, on the northeast corner of Drury Lane and Ballard Street. Though Cantu & Sons stamps are extremely plentiful, this is the first Cantu simpliciter I have found. I would estimate its age at 1980 or earlier, because the earliest Cantu & Son (singular) stamps I have found were from 1980, and the earliest Cantu & Sons (plural) were from 1984. This one appears undated, which is unusual for Cantu.

There’s something else odd about this spot. The house it’s in front of, an exceedingly plain little box, has a Ballard street address, but unambiguously faces Drury, which breaks the usual numbering rules. There is no door on the Ballard side at all. My guess is that the property acquired the number of the first house built there and kept it even when a newer house was built that faced the other way. This one was built in the 2000s, making it a very new house for the neighborhood. I wonder why the builder chose to make it a Drury house instead of a Ballard house?

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Call St., missing sidewalk

Today’s entry wraps up my brief tour of the 800 block of Call Street on the old north side. I suppose this could be a “hall of shame” but since I don’t know when it dates from or what the story is behind it, I’ll file it under “curiosities” instead. It’s on the north side of the block, close to the corner of Seventh Avenue.

Inexplicably, despite the rest of this block of Call Street having sidewalks, this section has none. It doesn’t appear to be subsided under the grass, or crumbled away. No, it appears that there has never been a sidewalk here. The sidewalk disappears (just after a 1940s DPW stamp) and then reappears before the intersection, and I cannot fathom any reason for this.

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Call St., Eastlund Concrete, 2005

Continuing my brief tour of the 800 block of Call Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues: this stamp is from the south side of the block. Eastlund Concrete stamps are common enough, but it’s the misprint of the date that got my attention.

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Call St., Cleghorn Const., 1962

Continuing my look at the 800 block of Call Street between 7th and 8th Avenues: this stamp is on the north side of the street and is a new contractor for this blog! Hooray! The stamp is dated 1962, which is the same year the house it is in front of was built. Perhaps the sidewalk was laid during the construction of the property. The house is the newest one on the block. The next oldest ones are from the 1940s. The majority of houses on the block are from the 1920s, but their next-door neighbor to the west is a house from 1880! It pre-dates the next oldest house on the block by 40 years. Intriguing.

I haven’t had much luck turning up information about Cleghorn Construction. From old State Journal classifieds, I can see that there was a John Cleghorn associated with Capitol City Realty around this time, but I don’t know if there is a connection.

Happy new year to both of my readers!

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Call St., C. Wilkinson, 1964

I picked a street I hadn’t been to before to scout for sidewalk stamps today. The lucky street was Call Street, on the old north side, chosen for being somewhat near an errand I was on. The next few days of blogging will be stamps and curiosities from the 800 block of Call.

Pardon the poor legibility; it was underwater thanks to snow melt.

This is a C. Wilkinson stamp in front of a house on the north side of Call, at the northwest corner of Call and Eighth Avenue. Yes, Lansing has an Eighth Avenue, a much smaller street than the better-known Eighth Street. There is also a longer Seventh Avenue one block west, but no other numbered avenues I know of. Eighth Street is sensibly named: it is (more or less) the eighth street from the dividing line downtown. I have no idea how Seventh and Eighth Avenues come by their names.

The stamp is located in the puddle seen in this photo. The cross street ahead is Eighth Avenue.

I have found a few C. Wilkinson stamps before, all from the 1960s. I still haven’t been successful finding anything out about C. Wilkinson. I wonder if it might be the Charles H. Wilkinson (1907-1981) who is buried in Evergreen Cemetery, but I have no basis for connecting them other than the name and date, so it’s a long shot.

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Somercroft Dr., Audia Concrete, 2005

I had to stop the car and take a look at this tiny little stub of a street in the Groesbeck neighborhood because I was amazed to see that it not only had a name, it had a sidewalk, on the west side of the block. I found the only stamp on it. The name is mostly illegible, but from experience I can recognize it as an Audia Concrete stamp.

I found myself wondering why the grandiosely-named Somercroft Drive existed. It seems to exist just to serve one of the entrance drives to the adjacent Post Oak elementary school, but it seems like it could have just been a driveway, rather than a named street. That got me wondering whether it used to be longer and perhaps connected to Lake Lansing Road to the north, so when I got home I checked HistoricAerials.com. No, the street has always been this long. It was created when the neighborhood was developed in the 1960s. When it was built, there was nothing north of here but farm fields. Today there is an office park. Perhaps they were leaving open the possibility of expanding the neighborhood to the north.

Looking north at the entirety of Somercroft Drive.

The sidewalk looks like its only possible use would be for children walking to and from Post Oak school, although it is on the wrong side of the road for that and does not connect with any path that leads to the school. In fact, given that it seems like a relatively low-use sidewalk, I am impressed that it got work done as recently as 2006.

I wonder what the shortest named street in Lansing is. This one has to be in the running.

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N. Fairview Ave., “TK+SD” graffiti, undated

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.”

Looking north on Fairview.

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N. Fairview Ave., DPW, 1920s?

My eyes are always drawn to an old Department of Public Works stamp, no matter what kind of shape it’s in. This one is on the east side of North Fairview Avenue between Saginaw and Grand River. I’m fairly sure it is 1920s, but can’t read the last digit. My gut says 1925, but I’m by no means confident about that.

The stamp may be nothing too special, but it does represent a breakthrough: I finally made myself walk across the pedestrian bridge over Saginaw. Many years ago when I was in grad school I ended up in this neighborhood for reasons I can’t recall or guess at. What I do remember is that I tried to cross on the pedestrian overpass and though I was able to walk to the top, my legs went weak and locked up and would not let me cross. I’m afraid of heights, and it feels flimsy, but mostly it’s the traffic roaring underneath that terrifies me. It doesn’t help that when I was buying my house, the real estate agent drove us underneath one of them and commented about how there was an accident when a truck hit one and knocked it down while some children were on it. (I thought I remembered him saying someone was killed, but either I misremembered or he did. Six children were injured, however.) I ended up descending the steps again in defeat and walking to a traffic light to cross. This time, though, I walked across it at last, and did it again on the way back. I was given some practice by having to walk across a larger one over a busier road in Mexico City a few years ago.

Looking south on Fairview. The stamp is on the block in front of the street tree, but facing the other way.

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E. Grand River Ave., illegible name, 2019

I found this stamp at the end of a run of newish-looking sidewalk in front of the building that includes M43 Fitness, A Cut Above hair salon, and the Urban Cup. It’s on the north side of East Grand River Avenue, essentially at the spot where Hayford would be if Hayford didn’t disappear for a couple of blocks north of Grand River before resuming.

I may have to return to this one with some foil or else materials to make a rubbing. I can almost make it out, but it’s just too shallow. I believe that it’s formatted with the date flanking the contractor’s logo on either side of vertical lines, like so: “[ 20 | illegible | 19 ]”. The illegible part looks quite brief, as though it might be initials.

The edge of the former pharmacy is just visible on the right. The stamp is at the very far end of this stretch of sidewalk.

I regret now that I didn’t get a picture that includes the M43 Fitness building (2225 E. Grand River Ave.). I didn’t think it was anything very special, but then I got home and did my research and found that its history was more interesting than I expected. In the City Pulse‘s New in Town column on February 15, 2018, it states that the building “has a history of being a watering hole: [owner Scott] Abramouski said the 1959 building had a soda fountain.” A search of the Lansing State Journal turns up the name of the business. It was called Glass Pharmacy. The last time I see its name connected with this address is in 1979. The last time I see it advertised at all, though without an address given, is in 1982. Starting in 1987, advertisements for “East Side Pharmacy (formerly Glass Pharmacy)” begin appearing. The last advertisement I can find for East Side Pharmacy is in 1995.