I found a pair of diagonal Lansing DPW stamps on either corner of a driveway apron, facing the street, on the east side of Clifford Street between Elizabeth and Fuller. Given how often I walk around this block and my particular interest in collecting diagonal stamps, I’m a little surprised I haven’t noticed them before. They are very faint – one of them was too faint to show up in a photograph.
This one is on South Pennsylvania Avenue, in front of the Marathon station at the southeast corner of Pennsylvania and Kalamazoo. It’s your basic, run-of-the-mill 1940s Department of Public Works stamp, very common around here.
Although I think of this gas station as being on Kalamazoo because it faces that way, I have learned that its street address is on Penn. It’s been a familiar sight for me for a long time, but I’ve never been inside it. I’m always headed out of town in the other direction when I stop for gas. Years ago, its canopy said MARATHON on one end and CONEY ISLAND on the other, and a sign on the side of the building dubbed it “Marathon Coney Island.” When my now-husband, then-sweetheart was first visiting me in Lansing, I drove past it while we were going somewhere, and in a bemused voice he said, “Coney Island?” I distractedly replied, “Oh yeah, I think they just have a food counter in there or something and that’s why it says that.” What I had completely forgotten is that as a New Jersey native he would be unfamiliar with the use of “Coney Island” to describe a specific kind of diner in Michigan. It occurred to me only a long time afterward that this would have sounded like a complete non sequitur. He didn’t ask for clarification at the time.
Sadly (in a way), the CONEY ISLAND banner is gone now, since it instead houses one of the locations of Jose’s Cuban Sandwich and Deli. I have had food delivered from there and it is very good. I just miss the big CONEY ISLAND letters.
The city’s online property records show that this building dates from 1964. I have a hard time imagining it as anything but a gas station, and yet I find Lansing State Journal ads from 1997 for Advanced Imaging Services Inc. at this location. Even more surprising, photos in the city’s property records seem to show that it only converted into a gas station around December 2004 (the city’s records show Advanced Imaging selling the property in July that year), and that it was vacant again by May 2008. I remember it as though it had always been the Marathon Coney Island until Jose’s moved in, but somehow it wasn’t even a gas station for the first several years I lived in town and I have no recollection of that now at all.
This faded 1941 Department of Public Works stamp is on the east side of Leslie Street’s 400 block, between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth.
See, I told you Lansing doesn’t enforce the code about what you can plant on the parkway. No “day lily tickets” in this town!
This “second style” Department of Public Works stamp is on the north side of East Saginaw Street between Maryland and Marshall (closer to Maryland), in front of Marshall Park. My husband and I walked to the park tonight because I heard that the city fireworks can be seen from there (pretty well, it turns out).
A driveway apron on the north side of Jerome between Ferguson and Custer caught my eye. It is relatively uncommon to have stamps at all on the driveway, but this one had four! The two pictured stamps are set diagonally on either corner, facing the sidewalk.
At first I was going to joke that they must have been especially proud of their work to stamp it twice, but then I realized the likely reason. There are actually two contiguous driveways here that share one big curb cut, as is common in the neighborhood. The double corner stamps are probably signaling “we did this side; the other side is some other contractor’s problem.” The other side has a single 1987 BWL stamp on it.
There are also upper and lower blocks making up each of the two sides. The DPW stamps are on the upper block, next to the sidewalk. The L & L stamp is on the lower block, next to the road.
Nothing too special today but I had a tough day and not enough time to do any research. This 1941 Department of Public Works stamp is on the north side of Jerome Street between Ferguson and Custer. I did find some houses that still have “winter” lights up, though, and that’s something. I always appreciate the cheer.
This Department of Public Works stamp is on the west side of Regent Street between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth (400 block). It’s a typical 1940s DPW stamp, quite worn. The date is hard to read and apparently harder to photograph.
That one isn’t too interesting on its own. What’s interesting is the matching one adjacent to it on the driveway apron of the property (see below).
This one is placed diagonally on the corner of the driveway apron, and the date is a lot clearer. This is interesting to me because although I’ve seen driveway aprons with stamps here and there, this is the first one I’ve noticed with a DPW stamp. I’m surprised that the DPW would have been involved in replacing someone’s driveway apron, unless some kind of city work is what caused it to need replacement.
This 1941 Department of Public Works stamp is decades older than the building that currently occupies the address. It’s on the south side of East Michigan Avenue, just west of the intersection of Francis and Michigan. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to readily locate information about what was at that address prior to the current building’s construction in 1970. Given what I’ve come to learn about Eastmost, it was probably a car lot. In decades past, it seems that this was the car dealer district.
I have a sentimental attachment to this building because it used to be Fish & Chips, a former Arthur Treacher’s that decided to keep going after the chain pulled out. It still had the old IN and OUT signs, the big lantern, and some of the menu boards. Just the name “Arthur Treacher’s” had been removed from the signage. I loved their fries and hush puppies.
Fish & Chips finally closed up shop in 2018, lasting about ten years past the point when I kept thinking it would surely close anytime now (but then thought maybe it never would). For a short while afterward it was Lee Lee’s Coney Island, and now is Amanecer Mexicano. I haven’t tried it, though I hear it is good. I just can’t get past wishing it was still what it used to be, and missing those hush puppies every time I walk by.
At least I think it’s 1941. That’s what it looks like in person. It’s an extremely worn DPW stamp (I recognize it by the shape and typography of the letters), located on the east side of Regent Street (200 block) between Kalamazoo and Michigan. Funny how unevenly they have worn, given that there are 1930s ones on the same block that are much more legible.
Tired of Regent Street stamps yet? I hope not, because you’re probably going to get more of them. How about Department of Public Works stamps? Same there; I want to see if I can figure out when they transitioned from one style of stamp to the next over the years.
The slab is a small one, odd sized. You run across truncated ones like this, both older and newer, and I’m not sure how they come about.