This plain and to-the-point stamp is on the east side of North Clemens Avenue between Michigan and Jerome, next to the parking lot behind Asian Gourmet. I have passed it by several times recently thinking I had already featured it, but this evening I finally checked to discover that no, I hadn’t.
The only Mike & Son I can find is Mike & Son Asphalt in Bath, but their Web site only mentions asphalt paving and there isn’t anything there to suggest they do concrete work, so I don’t know if there is a connection or not.
Looking south on North Clemens. The stamp is on the closest full slab, facing away from the viewer.
This pair of stamps from Bearstone Construction is on the east side of North Foster Avenue between Michigan and Vine, specifically in front of the Foster Community Center.
The southern stamp of the pair.
The community center contains a small library, which is where I usually have my library holds sent to, since it’s the closest one to home and easier to park at than the main library downtown. It was originally the Foster Avenue School, as the stonework over the door still proclaims. Lansing seems to have named a lot of its early elementary schools after the street they were located on (see also the Allen Street School). I’m surprised no one wanted to be an elementary school’s namesake.
Foster Community Center, taken as I approached from across Foster.
Bearstone Construction, according to its Web site, is “a family owned and operated business in the Lansing area” offering concrete, landscaping, and construction services. Their mailing address actually places them in Bath.
The northern of the two stamps. It showed up quite well under the flash. The two are a fair distance apart, presumably on either end of a run of new sidewalk.Looking south on Foster from the edge of the northern stamp.
There are three Moore Trosper stamps on the east side of North Fairview Avenue just north of Michigan. This is a different, in my view nicer, design than other Moore Trosper stamps I have catalogued so far. The name is rendered without a hyphen this time; they are inconsistent about that.
This is the southernmost stamp, which does not appear to be paired.
The above-pictured stamp is visible in this photo, bottom center.
The stamps are alongside the Arcadia Smokehouse, which I remember best for the period it spent as a vacant former PNC Bank whose parking lot people would sometimes use when the lot behind The Avenue filled up. A brief dive into old Lansing State Journal advertisements shows that the 1954 building spent a long time belonging to Bud Kouts, though as it is not adjacent to the main Bud Kouts (now Feldman) Chevrolet, it’s hard to picture how that worked.
There are three stamps in this stretch; one is a singleton and the other two appear to bracket a run of pavement.
The middle stamp of the three. It seems to mark the south end of a run of pavement.
It’s another 2016 stamp today, on the north side of West Michigan Avenue just south of Capitol, in front of Lansing City Hall. There are paired stamps on either end of a short run of new sidewalk.
Looking north on West Michigan. There is the Capitol, of course, and the State Holiday Tree on the left.
City Hall is a beautiful, mid-century modern building, evocative of a prosperous time in the city. I am very fond of it, which might put me in the minority (many residents seem to consider it ugly). The city has not always been a good custodian of it and has been trying to get rid of it. One of the last acts of Virg Bernero’s mayoral administration was to broker a deal to sell it for renovation into a hotel, with the plan being to move City Hall into the former Lansing State Journal building. The Schor administration put the brakes on that, leaving City Hall to continue indefinitely in its state of deferred maintenance.
The northern stamp.
I checked the copious pavement all around City Hall in hope of finding a stamp from its glory days, but to my surprise and disappointment, the only stamps I found were these new ones from Isabella Corp.
Lansing City Hall. This photo was taken from the approximate site of the northern stamp.
Here is a nice, neat one from Clark Foundation, dated this time.
Notice that the date stamp appears to be made of separate stamps lined up.
This one is on the curb cut on the southwest corner of East Michigan Avenue and South Hayford Avenue, leading across Hayford. It’s in front of another big new Gillespie building that takes up the whole block. All the sidewalk around it looks new, and has Clark Foundation stamps in several places.
Looking west on Michigan.
This corner used to have a 1925 Pulver Bros. service station, in use more recently as the Greater Lansing Ballet and Academy of Dance Arts; and before that, the Delphi stained glass supplier. Now it’s got a big, bland, hulk of a building called (I have just learned this) “Provident Place.” At least the sidewalk is nice.
This stamp on the north side of Regent Street between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth (400 block) is, I believe, the newest one on the block. It appears that two slabs were done at the same time but only one was stamped. It’s another stamp using the same template as yesterday’s.
Bolle Contracting is, as the stamp says, based in Clare, a city that calls itself the “Gateway to the North.” I associate it with drives up to our rented cottage in Omena as a kid. When we got to Clare, I got excited because it started to feel like up north. Bolle’s Web site unfortunately does not give a company history. It says they offer excavating, demolition, and abatement.
Looking south on Regent Street.
Someone added a bit of graffiti, but only to the slab that had the contractor’s stamp. It’s as though they found the other one too pristine to mar.
This stamp is on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Regent and Clemens. Isabella Corporation is based in Mount Pleasant, which is in Isabella County. Their business address is on Commerce Street. Despite the fact that I have worked in Mount Pleasant for fifteen years, I don’t know where that is without looking it up. As a commuter, I really only know the area around my workplace and a couple of places that co-workers like to gather. I think this might be the furthest out of town any of the contractors have been from, among those I could identify. Mount Pleasant, as I very well know, is around an hour’s drive away.
The stamp is in front of the building with the front ramp pictured below. It’s a big old (1916) American Foursquare house that has been converted to an office at some point. Such houses are common on this stretch of Michigan.
Looking west on Michigan Avenue at dusk. The Little Free Library and “take/leave” boxes belong to the office (a similar house) outside the frame to the left.
I’m not sure what, if anything, is in the house right now. I still think of it as “where the anarchist bookstore used to be” even though that is very long gone and was there only briefly. I have memories of walking home from the Michigan and Clemens bus stop after work, passing the Brighter Days Infoshop. I never went in there, but I remember people often seemed to be hanging around on the porch, which was open at the time. (I think it looked a lot better that way.) In my memory, this spans a greater time than in reality. In fact, I was very surprised when I discovered that Brighter Days opened in August 2003 and was closed by early July 2004. The building spent much longer as a chiropractor’s office and yet for some reason that’s not what’s lodged in my memory.
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.
