Let’s get back to basics with a worn, old pair of Department of Public Works stamps. These are on the east side of South Magnolia Avenue between Marcus and Harton, in the Urbandale neighborhood. It’s a bit hard to read, but I think the date is 1930.
This very worn Lansing DPW stamp (what I call the “second style” of DPW stamps) is on the west side of South Magnolia Avenue near the southern dead end. It’s in front of the second to last house on the west side, a house which is about seven years older than the stamp.
I’ve noticed a fair number of 1930-dated DPW stamps in the Urbandale neighborhood, so there must have been a big sidewalk replacement project around then. I figure I should capture interesting stamps on these blocks while I can, because they’ve recently started removing sidewalks from the areas near the dead ends.
It’s not extremely old by Department of Public Works standards, but I thought I should get this one in while I can. It’s on the dead-end 700 block of South Francis Avenue, on the west side, probably just south of where Harton Street would be if it still existed there. Across the street from it, the other side of Francis has had its sidewalk recently removed, as with many southern blocks in Urbandale. The sidewalk extends half a block or so further south on this side due to two remaining houses.
This stamp is on a half-sized slab of sidewalk in front of what looks like a vacant lot. In fact, as I discovered checking the city property records, the property south of this point encompasses not two but three lots, plus the vacated section of Harton! (Decommissioned streets seem to hang around in property descriptions, which fascinates me for reasons I can’t articulate.) Historicaerials.com shows Harton still existing here in 1981 but clearly gone in 1994.
This is a pair of Department of Public Works stamps on the east side of South Clemens Avenue between Michigan and Prospect. There are a handful of them from 1930 on this stretch of Clemens.
Continuing on yesterday’s theme, there are several 1930s Department of Public Works stamps on the east side of South Clemens Avenue between Kalamazoo and Prospect, including two especially clear and well-preserved stamps, both dated 1930.
I had to use a flash as I was walking at night, so I apologize for the glare.
I have always paid attention to sidewalk stamps, but now that I’m actively looking for them for this blog, I keep seeing ones I thought would be harder to find. For instance, I had thought finding one from the 1930s would be difficult as I could not recall ever seeing one. On my walk today I realized there was a 1930 stamp right out in front of 1704 Jerome, the house I previously wrote about. This is on the south side of Jerome between Marshall and Horton (near the corner of Marshall). I stopped to look at it first because I saw that it was another George Hagamier stamp like the one I noted on the Marshall side of the property. Then I realized that instead of another 1929 stamp as I expected, it was from 1930.
Although 1704 Jerome was built in 1929 according to the city’s property records, this leads me to wonder if it was still being worked on into 1930 (likely by George Hagamier, who was a building contractor).
This stamp is much more worn and difficult to read than the quite neat and clear stamp on the Marshall side of the property, near the house’s gigantic garage. I don’t know how to account for that. Jerome doesn’t seem likely to receive any more foot traffic than Marshall, but maybe things were different in decades past.
The funny thing is that my walk later took me past a Lansing DPW stamp on Clemens that, if I’m reading it correctly, also read 1930.