This stamp is on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Allen and Shepard. It’s undated, which is curious because I have seen other Eastlund stamps around town with dates, mostly in the 2000s if I’m remembering correctly. Eastlund Concrete of Holt is still in business and has been providing commercial concrete services since 1962, according to their Web site.
It’s out in front of Papa John’s Pizza, my longtime go-to pizza place (except when my parents are visiting because my dad prefers Jet’s). Papa John’s is no relation to the national chain. They had the name in this area long before the other Papa John’s came to town, so they had no legal obligation to relinquish it. When someone opened a Papa John’s franchise in Lansing back in the 2000s it had to go by the name Papiano’s. It’s long gone but our east side Papa John’s endures.
I’m trying so hard not to be bothered by the disorderly letters in that neon sign. I miss their previous neon, which was a cartoon chef’s face with big green eyebrows.
The stamp is on a half-sized slab right in front of the street tree in this next photo. (It’s right above a BBRPCI stamp oriented in the other direction.)
Able Concrete and Cantu & Sons went in opposite directions: Able added “Concrete” to their stamp sometime between 1999 and 2004, while Cantu & Sons dropped it in 1987.
This stamp is on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Magnolia and Hayford, in front of the McDaniels Insurance Agency.
This pleasantly old-fashioned little storefront was built in 1910. I don’t know for sure how long McDaniels has occupied the building, only that they don’t own it. Google Street View shows them moving in sometime between 2011 and 2015, preceded by Salon on Michigan. Based on city personal property tax records, I can see that other businesses that have occupied it include Afrikan Egyptian Bazaar (seemingly in the late 90s to early 2000s, though I don’t remember it at all) and some rando named Virgil Bernero. I’m just kidding, Virg, I voted for you. Based on the dates, he must have used it as his campaign office for the 2005 election.
At some point after the 1980s, L & L Construction apparently decided not to bother getting another fancy stamp and switched to this more home-made looking one. It’s a pretty common sight around my usual blocks, usually dated 1999 or 2000. This one is on the curb cut leading across Regent Street heading east on the south side of Michigan Avenue. There is a corresponding one on the other side of Regent and several others in nearby blocks of Michigan Avenue.
I used to think these had been drawn by hand, but I’ve changed my mind, because they are too consistent. Rather, I think the handwritten look is because the stamp (or perhaps stencil) was made in house and a bit rudely.
I think L & L ranks pretty high up among the most common stamps in my part of the east side. It’s not so common as the ubiquitous Cantu & Sons or the various versions of DPW/O & M, but it’s getting up there.
This one gives me a lot to write about, almost all of it about cars. Out in front of Feldman Chevrolet are several of these neatly-inscribed marks from The Christman Co. Builders, all dated 1960, and that got me thinking about what this stretch of pavement was like in 1960. Since I moved to Lansing in 1999 this – the corridor on either side of the US-127 overpass – has been seen as a bleak, forsaken stretch of Michigan Avenue. But in 1960 the nearby Frandor was a new, shiny, ultra-modern shopping center, instead of a vast plain of traffic and sadness fronted by a dead Sears.
Christman apparently laid this entire stretch of sidewalk alongside the dealership. Their stamp appears back-to-back like this, every few slabs.
In those days, this was Bud Kouts Chevrolet. Bud Kouts had bought the dealership in 1954, prior to which it had been called Wolverine Chevrolet. Wolverine had originally been located in downtown Lansing. Capital Gains magazine says that it moved “just after World War II,” and the Lansing property records show the current dealership office as dating to 1946, though it has been renovated into unrecognizability.
The Iding family purchased Bud Kouts in 1977, but the name must have carried a good reputation, because the Idings kept it until they sold the business in 2014 to established Detroit-area dealer Feldman. In turn Feldman branded itself as “Feldman’s Bud Kouts Chevrolet” for a few years, though that seems to have ended at some point. I notice that the business property ownership, according to Lansing records, is still in the hands of “Feldkouts LLC.”
Looking east on Michigan Avenue. This stretch of sidewalk has all been stamped at regular intervals.
So this bit of pavement was laid in what must have been a strikingly different Michigan Avenue corridor, yet in front of a business that still had many more years ahead of than behind it.
The stamps in my above photo appear on the two nearest slabs shown here.
As for Christman Co., they have done even better than Wolverine Chevy. They were established in 1894 in South Bend, Indiana and today have numerous offices in various states. Their Lansing office, still downtown, opened in 1919, though by then they had already done major projects for both MSU (then MAC) and Olds. In 1920 they built the Verlinden Street plant for Durant, later bought by GM and known formally as Lansing Car Assembly Plant #6 or colloquially, Fisher Body. The very last Oldsmobile was built there. I remember hearing about its demolition, which happened in 2007, but I was too absorbed in personal crisis to pay it as much attention as I now wish I had.
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.
Michigan Avenue on the east side of Lansing bears a lot of 1980s stamps from B.B.R.P.C.I. I find them invitingly cryptic. This example is on the north side of Michigan between Magnolia and Hayford.
The letters didn’t mean anything to me, so I tried Googling “BBRPCI” and had no luck. I figured “I” probably meant “Inc.” so I tried “BBRPC”; still no luck. For some reason I had a hunch that the core company name might be BBR so I tried “BBR” and “concrete.” That paid off, as I discovered the existence of BBR Progressive Concrete Inc. They have that sort of remnant Internet presence of a company that survived long enough to have been incorporated into various online databases but not long enough to have any Yelp reviews. The only thing I can tell you about them is that they were located at 10463 Nixon Road in Grand Ledge, which today looks to be just another 1960s-ish home in a rural neighborhood. (It’s across the street from a private drive – a rudimentary two-track – called Penny Lane, which seems like it would just be inviting the hassle of having one’s street sign stolen.)
