I’ve had my eye on this Regent Street Department of Public Works stamp (on the east side, 400 block, between Elizabeth and Kalamazoo). I previously posted it as having an illegible date, Periodically, it has almost become legible, due to the right lighting or a bit of water pooling in the indentations. Recently, I had decided it was possibly a 4 after the 19, but still could not read the final number at all. Then, suddenly, as I walked the block this evening…
Plain as day, thanks to fall rains washing away the right amount of mud and leaving the right amount of silt behind.
This Department of Public Works stamp is on the west side of Regent Street between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth (400 block). It’s a typical 1940s DPW stamp, quite worn. The date is hard to read and apparently harder to photograph.
That one isn’t too interesting on its own. What’s interesting is the matching one adjacent to it on the driveway apron of the property (see below).
This one is placed diagonally on the corner of the driveway apron, and the date is a lot clearer. This is interesting to me because although I’ve seen driveway aprons with stamps here and there, this is the first one I’ve noticed with a DPW stamp. I’m surprised that the DPW would have been involved in replacing someone’s driveway apron, unless some kind of city work is what caused it to need replacement.
Looking north on Regent Street. The closest sidewalk slab has the stamp, plus the driveway of course.
This 1941 Department of Public Works stamp is decades older than the building that currently occupies the address. It’s on the south side of East Michigan Avenue, just west of the intersection of Francis and Michigan. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to readily locate information about what was at that address prior to the current building’s construction in 1970. Given what I’ve come to learn about Eastmost, it was probably a car lot. In decades past, it seems that this was the car dealer district.
I have a sentimental attachment to this building because it used to be Fish & Chips, a former Arthur Treacher’s that decided to keep going after the chain pulled out. It still had the old IN and OUT signs, the big lantern, and some of the menu boards. Just the name “Arthur Treacher’s” had been removed from the signage. I loved their fries and hush puppies.
Looking west on Michigan Avenue. The stamp is at the lower center.
Fish & Chips finally closed up shop in 2018, lasting about ten years past the point when I kept thinking it would surely close anytime now (but then thought maybe it never would). For a short while afterward it was Lee Lee’s Coney Island, and now is Amanecer Mexicano. I haven’t tried it, though I hear it is good. I just can’t get past wishing it was still what it used to be, and missing those hush puppies every time I walk by.
Looking southeast. This is the opposite end of the building from the stamp.
At least I think it’s 1941. That’s what it looks like in person. It’s an extremely worn DPW stamp (I recognize it by the shape and typography of the letters), located on the east side of Regent Street (200 block) between Kalamazoo and Michigan. Funny how unevenly they have worn, given that there are 1930s ones on the same block that are much more legible.
Tired of Regent Street stamps yet? I hope not, because you’re probably going to get more of them. How about Department of Public Works stamps? Same there; I want to see if I can figure out when they transitioned from one style of stamp to the next over the years.
Looking north on Regent.
The slab is a small one, odd sized. You run across truncated ones like this, both older and newer, and I’m not sure how they come about.
There are a half dozen or more stamps bearing a 1944 date on Horton St.’s northernmost block (between Jerome and the new Eastern High School). They caught my attention because I haven’t noticed 1940s dates anywhere else on my walks around the east side.
Horton is a nicely shady street with sturdy old houses. Its dead end is a little strange, since the street evidently used to curve around to join the Armory lot, but is now blocked with a rusty gate. The stretch of street past the gate still has wooden posts demarcating it and the pavement is visible though starting to succumb to weeds. I wonder how long it’s been inaccessible.
The dead end of Horton St.
Most of the 1944 stamps have a clear, easy-to-read date, but a very worn name. I managed to find a legible one. It reads “Lansing D.P.W.” That would be Department of Public Works. Lansing no longer has a Department of Public Works (though East Lansing still does). I assume that it became the Public Service Department. One of the divisions of Public Service is Operations and Maintenance – so this stamp seems to be the 1940s version of the O&M stamps from the other day.
I wonder what was going on that Horton got so many new sidewalk slabs back in ’44?
