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S. Hayford Ave., curious driveway

This blog probably has the highest post-to-readership ratio out there, since I think only my husband reads it. Nevertheless, I feel like I have to start off by apologizing that this is not even slightly about sidewalks. It’s one of those tidbits I tag as “curiosities”: things around the neighborhood that make me wonder, “Now why ever was that built that way?” This one is a truly odd driveway belonging to a house on the west side of South Hayford Avenue between Marcus and Harton.

What’s odd about it is the fact that it aims straight at the front of the house. It seems a little unusual for a house in this neighborhood to have been built without a garage. Often if I check into the history of a garageless house I discover that a garage was torn down at some point, probably when it was allowed to get too derelict (as happened with the house next door to me). But even the ones without garages have their driveways sensibly located alongside the house, not running right up to the front door.

You would be forgiven for thinking it was just an abnormally wide front walk, but the placement of the driveway apron makes it clear that it is indeed intended to be the driveway. I can’t fathom what led to such a strange choice. My usual source for older photos of houses, CADL’s Belon Real Estate Collection, has nothing on this house; evidently it is one of the rare cases of a house that never changed hands during the time period the collection covers (early 1950s to early 1970s). According to the city records, the house was built in 1940.

Yep, definitely a driveway.
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Prospect St., Washburn Const., 2004

These two stamps are on the south side of Prospect Street between Virginia and Rosamond. One is on the driveway of a house and the other is on its front walk. (There is inexplicably no sidewalk on the south side of Prospect between Holmes and Clifford.)

The stamp on the driveway.

I can’t find anything out about Washburn Construction. I can find references to a Washburn Construction in Shelby (which is on the west side of the state between Whitehall and Ludington) but that is too far-flung to be likely. There is a Washburn Contracting Innovations in Almont (in the thumb region), but they appear to focus on carpentry. I doubt this was either of them.

The stamp on the front walk (which ends at the curb since there is no sidewalk).

The house itself (built in 1924) is extremely cute. This style of house, with the rounded roof and eyebrow dormers, isn’t common in the neighborhood. In fact, I don’t know of another one like it.

I love this house. And I kind of think this house loves me back.
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East Jordan Iron Works manhole cover, E. Kalamazoo St.

Here’s another sidewalkless sidewalk blog update, from the southwest corner of Kalamazoo and Magnolia. This seems to be the newest style of manhole covers around Lansing, and they look quite spiffy. They depict the city seal (or the city flag, as it’s the same image). The city’s flag and seal were adopted in 1994, replacing the previous, rather obscure flag. No one seems quite sure what the old flag even meant. It depicts a man felling a barren tree by a log cabin, with other bare stumps nearby, and a sunset in the background. The best explanation I have seen is that it depicted the sun setting on the pioneer era. Many found it to be a downbeat image (though it was surely not intended as such) so it is perhaps unsurprising that it was replaced with the current image, which, while inoffensive, also feels a bit too slick and corporate.

The manhole cover’s inner ring identifies its origin as our old friend “East Jordan Iron Works – East Jordan, Michigan, USA.”

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S. Holmes St., DPS (?), 1950

I am pretty sure this is a Lansing DPS stamp. It’s on Prospect Street between Jones and Holmes, next to the former Unity Church at 230 South Holmes. I like to try to find out what was at a given site at the time a stamp was made, but I haven’t ended up with a clear picture of that. Right now, what’s there is the remnant of the church, which had a devastating fire in 2019. According to the Lansing State Journal (November 13, 2019), the congregation was to vote on whether to rebuild the church at that location or move. Staying would have required applying for a zoning variance, because the church had been grandfathered into an otherwise residential-zoned area and doing substantial renovation would result in losing this status. Evidently they decided to move. According to city records, they sold it to someone calling themselves “Homes on Holmes LLC” in April 2021. I don’t know what they’re planning to do with it, but they have filed for a “Commercial Change of Use Group.” Church leaders made a YouTube video saying goodbye to the building, showing the interior to be completely gutted.

Pardon the poor visibility. I was on one of my nighttime walks.

According to the Journal article, “The property […] has been home to a church since the early 20th century,” which falls short of asserting that this building has been there that long. It reads as midcentury to me, but I’m not an expert. The city’s online property records are no help, since they claim it was built in 2011, which it plainly was not. It was owned until 2006 by the Metaphysical Church of Christ, previously known as the Spiritual Episcopal Church. The earliest reference I can find to the address in the State Journal is in the April 27, 1968, church listings: “FIRST SPIRITUAL EPISCOPAL 230 S. Holmes St. Morning service, 10:30. Dedication of new church home.” This could mean the church itself was new or it was merely a new home for the congregation. So I have been unable to determine anything definitively.

The former church and its sign at the corner. The sidewalk block with this stamp is the nearest full block.

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Marshall St., filled in footprints

Sidewalks with footprints in them (human and squirrel) are common enough, but this was the first time I had seen something like this. It appears that someone’s careless footsteps were deep enough to warrant repair, and more concrete has been smoothed into the depressions, leaving what looks like ghost footprints.

This is on Marshall Street by the parking lot behind Jersey Giant, which is at the northwest corner of Marshall and Michigan.

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Marshall St., Forgotten Stairs

There is a house I admire – a big old house, built in 1890 – at the northwest corner of Jerome and Marshall Streets. It faces Jerome, and on the Marshall side there are some now-useless steps that the residents have decorated with a couple of nice planter boxes.

Presumably the steps were intended to allow residents to go from the side entrance of the house down to Marshall Street. While the flowers are nice, it strikes me as a shame to block access to the sidewalk from this side. I wonder when the fence was put in and who was the last person to walk up or down the steps.

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Horton Ave., Illegible (Cantu & Sons?)

Are you tired of extremely faint stamps from Horton Avenue yet? Well, life is hard. This is a very nearly invisible stamp that I noticed only because I have started actively looking at “curb walks” for stamps. (I don’t know what I am supposed to call them, but “curb walk” is my name for little bits of sidewalk that run across someone’s extension to the curb, and “extension” is my name for what Lansing’s municipal code calls a “parkway”). This one is on the east side of Horton Avenue (yes Avenue, I keep forgetting that it’s an Avenue and not a Street, Google Maps notwithstanding) between Michigan and Jerome.

Yeah, you might have to take my word for it that there’s a stamp here.

I believe it may be a Cantu & Sons stamp, specifically the “Cantu & Sons Cement Cont” variety, because I can make out part of the word “cement” in the lower row of the stamp, and an N above it in the upper row. The date is a lost cause.

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Horton St., C. Wilkinson, 1965(?)

Here’s another extremely worn stamp from the northernmost block of Horton Street, on the west side of the street. This one I recognized more readily, as a C. Wilkinson stamp. The date is 1960s and I think it’s 1965, though I’m not entirely confident of the last digit.

I wonder why so many stamps on Horton are so worn compared with the same vintage stamps on other blocks? It does seem like there are more of these very faint ones around there.

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Horton St., T.A. Forsberg, 1960s

This stamp is near the north end of Horton, on the east side of the street. I intended to present it as illegible, but when I got home and looked at the photograph I suddenly realized I could recognize it after all. Sometimes the camera sees something that I can’t see with my eyes. It’s definitely a T.A. Forsberg stamp. I’m not sure of the last digit of the date, which otherwise appears to be 1960s.

This is about as worn as a stamp can get and still be readable at all. It’s almost gone, lost to history.