I had gotten in the habit of assuming that if I saw an O & M stamp it would be undated. But looky here…
That’s a 2005 stamp on the north side of Prospect Street between Virginia and Rosamond.
Prospect St., O & M, 2005
E. Michigan Ave., O & M, 2016
This one is on the south side of Michigan between Regent and Leslie. At some point, it appears, the plain O & M stamp got replaced with one that shows a bit more pride and, better yet, a date. I like the outline, although I miss the ampersand.
It’s right out in front of Liz’s Alteration Shop, a longtime east side business. My understanding is that Liz herself has recently retired from tailoring but still sells crafts such as masks out of the shop.
Regent St., O & M, undated
This one, on Regent St. between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth, is a strange example of a sidewalk stamp because it’s much less informative than they usually are. There’s no date and only initials for the company name. It’s also very worn. What does this say, anyway? OSM? O&M? Maybe I can find another one like that’s less worn…
… Yes, just a house or two down there’s this much cleaner one. It’s a little odd that it’s so much sharper given that I suspect they were done around the same time. The middle letter looks less like an S here, but also doesn’t quite look like an ampersand.
Update 8/8: I have determined that this is probably the city’s Operations and Maintenance department. That is an oddly stylized ampersand; I wonder when the stamp was created? They probably used the same one for years.