Posted on by bunnyhugger

Regent St., Cantu & Sons, 1988

This is another one on Regent St. between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth. Cantu & Sons have stamped more sidewalks in Lansing’s east side (my neighborhood) than any other contractor by a wide margin. Most I have seen are dated 1987 or ’88, suggesting the neighborhood or perhaps the city had a huge sidewalk replacement project at that time. It’s hard for me to imagine now, as during my walks I have seen countless damaged, crumbling, and heaved-up sidewalk slabs and can’t recall ever seeing one being fixed on my own block in 20-plus years of living here.

It’s a little hard to read but the date is 1988, with the stamp reading “1987” and the final 7 manually overwritten to become an 8. I have seen this adjustment on a large number of the Cantu & Sons slabs. You might assume they just never bothered to get a new stamp for 1988, but it’s not so: I have seen ones with a 1988 stamp.

Some of the Cantu & Sons stamps add “CEMENT CONT” as a second line. I can find a “Cantu and Sons Cement Contract” [sic] listed in the 1984 US Small Business Administration Annual Report, with their city given as East Lansing. They do not appear to be in business anymore under that name, but I do find a Cantu Builders on Lake Lansing Rd. Their Web site states, “We have been in business for over 30 years, with our roots in concrete. We have since branched out and are experienced with remodels, painting, siding, commercial and residential building, tile and fine finishes. Although our name has changed a couple times our excellent work and customer service has not.” Sounds like I’ve found them. (Yes, I know cement and concrete are not the same thing.)

Posted on by bunnyhugger

O&M mystery solved

I realized I should just do some research to try to figure out who “O&M” was and it wasn’t long before I pieced together that it is probably the city’s Operations and Maintenance department. This partly explains the brevity of the stamp. Most of these serve partly as advertisements for the contractor, but the city doesn’t need to advertise. Presumably they just mark them for informational purposes instead. I do wish they were dated like most of the sidewalk stamps around town.

My guess is that the city mostly does sidewalk work when they have disrupted the pavement working on some other project in the area.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

Regent St., O & M, undated

This one, on Regent St. between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth, is a strange example of a sidewalk stamp because it’s much less informative than they usually are. There’s no date and only initials for the company name. It’s also very worn. What does this say, anyway? OSM? O&M? Maybe I can find another one like that’s less worn…

… Yes, just a house or two down there’s this much cleaner one. It’s a little odd that it’s so much sharper given that I suspect they were done around the same time. The middle letter looks less like an S here, but also doesn’t quite look like an ampersand.

Update 8/8: I have determined that this is probably the city’s Operations and Maintenance department. That is an oddly stylized ampersand; I wonder when the stamp was created? They probably used the same one for years.