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S. Homer St., Cioffi & Son, undated

This undated stamp is from the west side of South Homer Street between Prospect and Michigan, in front of A & J Transmission. I previously found a stamp with the name just reading “Cioffi,” dated 2021, in the Sycamore Park neighborhood (near Potter Park). At the time I wrote, “The only Cioffi Construction I can find is based in Akron, and I can’t imagine that one would be doing work in metro Lansing.”

So much for my lack of imagination. Indeed, a Cioffi out of Akron is laying sidewalks in Lansing, but this time it’s Cioffi and Son. Did a son join the business, making this the later stamp? Or did the father retire, making this the earlier one?

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Lathrop St., XMC, 2012

Here’s another one that has been hiding from me in a spot I’ve traveled often enough. I think I can see why: it’s quite worn and probably visible only in good light. It’s on the east side of Lathrop Street, south of Elizabeth.

I have only found one other stamp by this contractor, so this is a rare one. XMC is, by my best guess, short for <guitar-lick>Xtreme Mason Contractors</guitar-lick>, a contractor from Laingsburg. The last digit of the date is a little uncertain but my best guess is that it’s a 2.

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E. Michigan Ave., Bond Basile, undated

I might have walked past this one without taking notice a hundred times. It’s on the slab right in front of the IQ Fit building on the south side of East Michigan Avenue, between Francis and Mifflin. The concrete is in especially bad shape here, patched repeatedly with asphalt, so it is lucky that this stamp survives. It is undated, but could date to the construction of the adjacent building in 1959.

I have actually encountered this stamp just one other time, on the front walk of a house on South Pennsylvania, though only the word Basile was legible. Looking back at that one, the placement does suggest another word was probably worn away in front, so it probably also read Bond Basile. Unfortunately, I know nothing of the contractor, despite searching.

The stamp is on the nearest block that touches the vertical siding, facing the road.
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Regent St., C. Gossett, 1963

It’s final grading week and I spent last night up until the early hours grading exams and I’ll probably be doing it again tonight, so here’s a late and low-key update. This is from a driveway apron on the east side of Regent Street between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth. I’ve been able to see the date for a while, but recently the name has also suddenly become more visible. It’s hard to see in this photo, but the last several letters are SSETT indicating it is, unfortunately, just a regular old C. Gossett stamp, similar to very many others on this block.

I’ve never been able to learn anything in my research about C. Gossett or find a single reference to them, despite how many sidewalks they laid in around here in the 1960s.

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S. Fairview Ave., O & M, 2015

It’s somewhat unusual to find a dated O & M (city Operations and Maintenance) stamp in any case, but especially rare in the southern reaches of the Urbandale neigborhood. This one is near the dead end (south of Horton, north of I-496) on the west side of the street.

Sorry for the poor photo. I’m still not used to my new phone. It’s delightfully tiny but a bit hard to handle for photographs.
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Marcus St., Eastlund Concrete, 2022

I know you’re thinking that I’m a little early for a change, but actually, I’m a lot late. Sorry about that. It’s finals week, also known as crunch time for professors. Anyway, here’s a couple of stamps from the entrance to an alleyway that runs from Marcus to Elizabeth Street, between Clemens and Fairview.

This one is from the approach to the alleyway. I had to scrape dirt away from it with my foot.
The entrance to the alleyway and the sidewalk that it crosses were evidently done at the same time.
This stamp is from the sidewalk part. The dirt is currently doing a very nice job of making the letters pop.
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Clifford St., DPW, 1941

I found a pair of diagonal Lansing DPW stamps on either corner of a driveway apron, facing the street, on the east side of Clifford Street between Elizabeth and Fuller. Given how often I walk around this block and my particular interest in collecting diagonal stamps, I’m a little surprised I haven’t noticed them before. They are very faint – one of them was too faint to show up in a photograph.

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Clifford St., unsigned, 1992

Here’s a mysterious date marking from the east side of Clifford Street between Kalamazoo and Marcus. The typeface and corner placement strongly suggest it was done by the BWL, but they usually stamped their name into the lower left corner of the same slab, so I’m not sure why it is absent here. Possibly the sidewalk used to be wider.

Sorry for the blurry photo; I’m still getting used to my new phone.
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Vine St., KLM Lum graffiti, undated

I found this neat, unobtrusive graffiti on the south side of Vine Street between Ferguson and Custer. It’s alongside a house that faces Custer. I initially speculated that it was two sets of initials from two people in the same family, with a last name starting with M.

Checking the property records online, however, I found that in 2009 the house was sold by someone with the last name Lum. So either someone in the house was named K.L.M. Lum, or KLM were the leading initials of three members of the house (perhaps the children). The owner’s name I see in the records did not start with K, L, or M.

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E. Michigan Ave., […]oleum, 1927?

Wet pavement and streetlights combined to give me an especially good look at this half-lost stamp. It’s from the north side of East Michigan Avenue between Fairview and Magnolia, in front of the MetroPCS store. When I first photographed it back in 2020, I had to peel away a sod layer to see to the edge of the hacked-off slab, but thanks to my efforts at that time it is still all as visible as it can get. The reason for the update – besides that it’s an especially good look at it – is that I am now quite confident in the date being 1927. The curve of the penultimate numeral does not make sense for anything other than a 2.