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Regent St., Snowy Walks

We finally had a little bit of snow (now long since obliterated by the weather turning warm again) and I took a walk in it to get photos of Christmas lights. I also found some beautiful snow-frosted sidewalk stamps. I love the way snow settles into the lettering; in some cases, as in the B.F. Churchill stamp below, it even makes it more legible.

A 1944 Department of Public Works stamp on Regent Street.
This 1908 B.F. Churchill stamp on Regent was one of the stamps that first motivated this blog. The extreme purple cast is due to a defective LED street light.

In honor of the holiday, here are some of the photos I took of Christmas lights on my walk. I have really come to enjoy walking alone in snowy quiet after night falls, stopping to stand in front of Christmas displays and admire them. Driving around to admire lights is nice, and I do that too, but there is something special about the intimacy of doing it on foot. Being a pedestrian is underrated.

Happy holidays from Capital City Sidewalks!

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Horton St., DPW, 1944

There are plenty of 1944 DPW stamps on Horton Street, but this one, on the east side of the street between Michigan and Jerome, is unusually placed. It’s on the sidewalk across the house’s driveway, and it faces sideways, toward the house, as though it were showing off to the homeowner.

This is in front of the same house as the nearly-gone hall of shame sidewalk from the last entry.

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N. Fairview Ave., DPW, 1944

This one is on the apron of a driveway on the west side of North Fairview Avenue between Vine and Fernwood. It’s stamped diagonally on the south corner of the apron, facing the sidewalk so pedestrians can admire it. I am mildly curious what circumstances result in the city having to construct (or more likely reconstruct) someone’s driveway apron. I’m guessing it happens when they have to tear up for sewer work, for instance.

An overview of the driveway apron. There is also an Ayala’s stamp on the other side, but Ayala’s chose to have it face the street instead.

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Horton St., Lansing DPW, 1944

There are a half dozen or more stamps bearing a 1944 date on Horton St.’s northernmost block (between Jerome and the new Eastern High School). They caught my attention because I haven’t noticed 1940s dates anywhere else on my walks around the east side.

Horton is a nicely shady street with sturdy old houses. Its dead end is a little strange, since the street evidently used to curve around to join the Armory lot, but is now blocked with a rusty gate. The stretch of street past the gate still has wooden posts demarcating it and the pavement is visible though starting to succumb to weeds. I wonder how long it’s been inaccessible.

The dead end of Horton St.

Most of the 1944 stamps have a clear, easy-to-read date, but a very worn name. I managed to find a legible one. It reads “Lansing D.P.W.” That would be Department of Public Works. Lansing no longer has a Department of Public Works (though East Lansing still does). I assume that it became the Public Service Department. One of the divisions of Public Service is Operations and Maintenance – so this stamp seems to be the 1940s version of the O&M stamps from the other day.

I wonder what was going on that Horton got so many new sidewalk slabs back in ’44?