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E. Michigan Ave., BWL, 2023

Tonight was Silver Bells in the City, which I haven’t missed attending in years, and while walking between the Lansing Center (where we parked) and the car, I found another 2023 stamp, this one from BWL (the Board of Water and Light). It’s on the north side of East Michigan Avenue, west of the Lansing Center and east of the river.

This stamp matches the style of one I found that had a somewhat obscured date that I took to be either 1987 or 1997. I ended up settling on 1987, but now I wonder if it wasn’t 1997 after all. Other 1980s BWL stamps have a bolder, rounded typeface that I find much more pleasant.

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Regent St., EPM, 2023

Here it is: some brand new sidewalk! The Consumers Energy utility work that has closed a lane on East Kalamazoo Street off and on for months has finally reached the stage when a lot of the torn-out sections of sidewalk are being replaced. And, while it’s not the most exciting design I’ve seen, it is all properly stamped. This is just one of many examples, in this case on the southeast corner of Kalamazoo and Regent, in front of the vacant former Lucky’s/Pure Options.

I am assuming that the responsible party is EPM Professional Grounds Services of Jackson, Michigan. The name stands for Executive Property Management, referencing the fact that they specialize in commercial properties.

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Kipling Blvd., Brown Const., 1988

On a pleasant early-afternoon walk in search of Halloween decorations, I came across these stamps from a contractor I haven’t noticed before. They are on the west side of Kipling Boulevard between Lasalle and Fernwood. There are two, a short distance apart, which means they probably marked the beginning and end of a section of new concrete.

One of the stamps has a date stamped underneath, though faintly enough that I thought it was undated until I looked at my photo afterward. My phone tends to put a lot of contrast on photos and that popped it out. Curiously, the other stamp has a much clearer but handwritten date.

I don’t know anything about Brown Construction, but I wonder if it is this contractor in Grand Ledge that Yelp reports as closed.

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Hall of Shame: Unstamped “Bum Walk” on Jerome

I finally got a chance to walk up to Jerome and Horton to see the bum walk people have been complaining about on the Eastside Facebook group. Several curb cuts along Jerome on Horton and nearby streets have been reconstructed recently, and it does not appear that any of them were stamped by the contractor so that they could take credit (or possibly, in this case, discredit) for their work.

The northwest corner of Jerome and Horton.

I’m not a sidewalk expert and it’s possible there is nothing wrong with these. The complaint that’s being made is that the approaches are too low, resulting in water pooling around them during heavy rain. To my eyes it did appear that they were lower than the drain at this corner, but again, I can’t be sure. Marking this as a Hall of Shame entry is more to do with the failure to mark them as city code requires.

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Taft St., Cantu, 2002

I made this discovery while walking in and around Bancroft Park recently. It’s on the north side of Taft Street between Ohio and Indiana (Avenues, not States).

I know, you’re thinking, “Another Cantu stamp, big deal.” But look closer! It’s not a dime-a-dozen Cantu & Sons or even a Cantu & (singular) Son, but it’s Cantu simpliciter. While I know that Cantu Builders is the current name of the still-extant company, I had never turned up a stamp without Sons or Son. This is also the most recent Cantu stamp I’ve found, with the previous record-holder being one from 1993. I was beginning to think they didn’t do any sidewalk work after that.

I need to make some more trips into the north side and see what else I can find.

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Bum Walks, 2023 Edition

The scheduled sidewalk stamp for today has been pre-empted so that I can bring you this breaking news: people in the Eastside Neighborhood Organization Facebook group are getting angry about sidewalk construction. It’s true! Wordy tilts about bum walks are not the exclusive province of the 1910s. It’s great watching people get livid about (allegedly) badly-made sidewalks.

I considered coming into the fray to explain that this is why they’re supposed to stamp their names on it, but ultimately thought better of it.

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Ohio Ave., illegible [Buonodono?], 1961

I decided to walk a bit in a different neighborhood, Old Town near Bancroft Park, to try to get some new stamps. I didn’t find anything entirely new there on a short jaunt, but I think this is another instance of the hard-to-read stamp on Elizabeth Street that I thought might read “Buonodono.” Unlike that one (which is undated) this one seems to bear a date of 1961.

It’s on Ohio Avenue near the northwest corner of Ohio and Taft.

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Work begins on E. Kalamazoo St.

The work they were getting ready for on the 1700-1800 blocks of East Kalamazoo Street – as discussed in my last entry – and as I predicted, they have started tearing out chunks of sidewalk. I’ll have to check again in daylight, but I believe that this stretch, located outside the former Lucky’s (later Pure Options, now vacant), took out a pair of Cantu & Sons 1987 stamps.

That’s no great loss, I suppose, given how common those stamps are on the east side, but it did cause me to comment to my husband about how the stamps I catalog here are “ephemeral.” Then I corrected myself, “Actually, I guess they’re not all that ephemeral,” and he laughed and agreed. We were both thinking of how old many of them are; it’s quite common to find ones from the 1920s, and not all that hard to find ones that are earlier, as I soon found out when I started making an effort to record them. Still, I suppose what I meant is that any of them could be gone at any time, and there’s no predicting when. That’s why I’m glad I have made an effort to photograph so many.

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Getting ready for a project on E. Kalamazoo St.

Stakes, flags, and spray-painted markings have cropped up all over the 1700-1800 blocks of East Kalamazoo Street, apparently in advance of a construction project. I’m not sure what project is coming – perhaps something related to the Consumers Energy gas pipeline upgrade project? – but it seems likely to result in some new sidewalk, so that’s something to look forward to.

I’m always intrigued by spray-painted markings for underground utilities, but I think my favorite one of the bunch is this question mark, indicating someone was at a loss to explain this bit of twisted metal erupting from the asphalt in the parking lot of (the former) Lucky’s convenience store at Kalamazoo and Regent.

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E. Bellows St., Mt. Pleasant, Kastle Const., 1994

Mount Pleasant has few sidewalk stamps, but I found this one on a curb cut on Bellows Street, at the northwest corner of Bellows and South University. There are several others like it nearby.

The building here, now vacant, was SBX (the Student Book Exchange) until 2018. I miss the days of independent college bookstores. CMU doesn’t have any now and at the rate they’re pushing “Inclusive Access” (a monopolizing opt-out program that automatically charges students for a lousy online copy of a book) their official University bookstore will soon just be a clothing and tchotchke shop. Nearby this abandoned store are several other abandoned storefronts that used to serve CMU students. It is probably not a coincidence that CMU’s student population is around half what it was in 2014.

I can’t tell you much about Kastle Construction of Central Michigan except that they apparently used to be located on Commerce Drive in Mount Pleasant and no longer appear to be in business. I appreciate their leaving behind some stamps for me.