The City of Lansing is, in one respect, more powerful than God: the City is not compelled to obey its own laws.
This new stretch of sidewalk was laid as part of the installation of a new bus shelter in front of Foster Park, on the south side of East Kalamazoo Street between Francis and Hayford. The new shelter is a welcome amenity, and looks sharp in its shiny red paint and decorated windows. But I disapprove of the absent sidewalk stamp, and that is what lands this in my Hall of Shame.
This very worn Cantu & Sons stamp is located on the south side of East Kalamazoo Street between Clemens and Regent (pretty close to Clemens). It’s the only stamp I can find on the stretch of sidewalk in front of King World. The date is extremely hard to read in the photo, but in person it is just possible to make it out as 1988.
It’s in front of King World, which is an eccentric combination of a convenience/party store and a beauty and barber supply shop. When I first moved to town in the summer of 1999, this building was empty, but it was still easy to see that its most recent occupant had been a coin laundry. About a year later King World moved in.
The building dates from 1962. I can find advertisements for a Norge Village laundromat at that address in the 1970s, and most likely it was built originally as part of that chain, which was booming by 1962. Norge Village is famous among fans of old signs and the like for its lit-up, polka-dotted globe signs, popularly called “Norge Balls.”
It apparently remained a laundry through at least one changeover, as it appears in the December 30, 1989, Lansing State Journal new businesses listings as Kalamazoo St. Laundry. The last reference I can find to a laundry business there is in a sidebar of “Unsolved Fires of 1991” accompanying an article (“Fatal Fire Remains Unsolved”) on page 1B of the January 15, 1992, Lansing State Journal. The list includes “September 30 – Fire in laundry dryer at 1918 E. Kalamazoo” and honestly, that one really sounds like it solved itself.
Advertisements trying to sell the building (no mention of a laundry business) start showing up in 1996, and then again in 1998. Whether it was used for anything during that time period is not clear but seems doubtful. The sale to King World is recorded in the city’s online records in July 2000.
This stamp is in front of a vacant lot on the south side of East Kalamazoo Street, just west of South Hayford Avenue. I didn’t get a picture of it because it was dark, but you might know this vacant lot as the one that hosts the teepee-like art installation(?) made of logs.
KMI Road Maintenance LLC is based in Burton, Michigan. According to their Web site, “KMI Road Maintenance LLC is a hard surface repair contractor serving Genesee and the surrounding counties. KMI Road Maintenance specializes in concrete and asphalt repair and maintenance of both commercial and residential properties.” I’m a little surprised to find their stamp here, since this county doesn’t border Genesee, but it’s not too far away. Interestingly, their Web site also states that their maintenance division serves as research and development for their equipment manufacturing business in North Branch.
I previously showed you a 1987 Don Bates stamp from out in front of the Beverly Place Apartments (which take up most of the blocks between Holmes and Clifford on the north side of Kalamazoo, across the street from Hunter Park). The same stretch of sidewalk contains this stamp from L. Ketchum. There are also a couple more of them from the same date, so possibly part of the same project, in front of the smaller Park Terrace Apartments next door to the west. The Beverly was built in 1965, and the Park Terrace in 1961. Also during the 1960s, Hunter Park was undergoing change, first getting a swimming pool and then getting some extra land as part of the morally dubious near-destruction of Stabler Park.
My best guess is that L. Ketchum is Lyle Ketchum. In the September 24, 1947 Lansing State Journal classifieds, there is this advertisement from Lyle Ketchum of Holt: “CEMENT WORK Walls, footings, floors, drives, etc.” Then I find a reference to a “Lyle Ketchum Cement Constr.” team in the Lansing State Journal‘s “Bowling Honor Roll” column of November 28, 1971. Muddying matters is that there have been multiple Lyle Ketchums in the Michigan concrete scene: I find this obituary for Lon Lyle Ketchum of Lake Odessa, which describes him as a concrete contractor, but since he died at age 63 in 2014 he could not have been the Lyle Ketchum laying concrete in 1947. That must have been his father, Lyle Ketchum Jr., 1927-1983. The family apparently continued the business in Lake Odessa until around 2013. The timing of the corporation’s dissolution in July 2013 may have had something to do with this $16,000 fine for wage and hour violations in May 2013.
I know, I know, it’s a plain old Cantu & Sons 1987. They’re everywhere. I can’t help it; there was a dusting of snow over almost everything and I got desperate and took something I could actually see, if barely. There is a pair of them in front of StateSide Wellness, on the south side of East Kalamazoo Street between Regent and Clemens. They are very worn, almost certainly due to being next to the building’s driveway.
I’m still not quite used to the place being a marijuana dispensary, as it recently remade itself. When I moved to town, it had been Lucky’s Market, a convenience store. I thought it was nice having a shop close by my house in case I ran out of pop, though it was pretty disorderly inside, had an off-kilter selection, and took only cash. I gathered that it had a bit of a reputation on the east side. Someone in my pinball league once said to me, “You know, they used to sell little balls of steel wool there for a dime each.” My husband likes to say that it became much more reputable as a pot shop than it was as a convenience store. I will admit that it looks neater and does a better job shoveling its sidewalk.
Another longtime resident told me that she remembered when it had been a fried chicken place. She said people used to like to get their fried chicken there and then eat it while doing laundry next door. (The place next door is now a convenience store – for a long time there were two of them side by side taking up that side of the block – but had been a coin laundry before I moved to town.) I looked into it, and it appears it was one of several Lansing locations of Famous Recipe Chicken (sometimes called Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken). It seems to have been that from around 1966 to 1991, so during the era of these stamps. After that, it seems to have been something called Steak 2 U for a while before becoming Lucky’s in 1994.
The building was built in 1956. While Lucky’s was shedding its old cladding and plastic roof trim (during the transformation to StateSide Wellness) we got a chance to see the building naked. It was a surprisingly tiny pillbox of a building made of concrete block. This revealed bricked-over remnants of garage bay doors, suggesting an early existence as a service station.
This one, on the south side of Kalamazoo Street between Pennsylvania and Bingham, has been on my list for ages. Back in October, I wrote about another Minnis & Ewer stamp nearby (with the same date, if I’m reading it right) and mentioned that on my way to it I passed this one and would feature it another time. There is also a third, undated one in the vicinity, which I featured in August. Assuming that one was also done around the same time as the other two – August 1910 – I photographed it during its 110th anniversary month.
I think this says “8-10,” anyway. It looks like the clearer 8-10 stamp around the corner on Pennsylvania. I never stop admiring the crispness of these very old Minnis & Ewer stamps.
I would have thought that Board of Water and Light (BWL) stamps would be common, but this is the only one I know of, so far. It is on the south side of East Kalamazoo Street between Lathrop and Allen, in front of a vacant lot. The lot used to have a cute little Craftsman house until it was gutted by fire several years ago.
I know what you’re thinking. “Another Cantu & Sons stamp?” Look, if I published Cantu & Sons stamps in proportion to how common they are, this would just be a Cantu blog with occasional impurities. As I’ve said before, Cantu stamps are by far the most common stamps on the east side.
This variant Cantu & Sons stamp is on the north side of East Kalamazoo Street between Fairview and Magnolia. The most common Cantu stamps are the 1987-88 stamps that just read “Cantu & Sons.” The next most common are the ones from prior to that, reading “Cantu & Sons Cement Cont.” This rather faint one adds “Cantu & Sons Const” to the mix. Unfortunately, it’s undated.
There are two of these stamps in front of the apartments across from Hunter Park, on the north side of East Kalamazoo Street between Holmes and Clifford. Although I pass those apartments all the time, I would not have been able to tell you what the complex was called until I looked it up this evening. Apparently they are the Beverly Place Apartments.
Both stamps are pretty worn. On one of them the name is harder to read but the date is clear. On the other, the name is fairly clear but the last digit of the date is illegible. Putting them together, I get Don Bates, 1987.
I haven’t found out anything about Don Bates. I will say I am surprised to see a 1987 stamp from someone besides Cantu & Sons (and there is at least one Cantu stamp on this block).
This Eastlund Concrete stamp is on the north side of East Kalamazoo Street between Regent and Leslie. It has a different style from the one I previously photographed plus, unlike that one, it is dated.
