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Oakland Dr., East Lansing, Eastlund Concrete, 1975

Sometimes when I’m driving around town I’ll pick a neighborhood street at random to divert into to look for sidewalk stamps. This time I was driving home from the Meridian Mall on Grand River Avenue and made a snap decision to turn into a street I had never noticed the existence of before, Oakland Drive.

The street was an odd mixture of midcentury ranch homes and 1920s English cottage and Tudor style. It’s a narrow street, with sidewalk erratically appearing and disappearing on both sides. In front of one of the older homes I found this Eastlund Concrete stamp dated 1975. It’s on the west side of the street between Grand River and Roseland.

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Downer St., unsigned, 1975

Sometimes I pick an unfamiliar block semi-randomly and divert to it on my way home from work to look for sidewalk stamps. This time I picked Downer Street between Woodruff and Hopkins. There wasn’t much of interest there, but I did find this driveway on the west side of the street. It has a year, 1975, stamped in each corner, but no contractor name. There is a matching driveway stamped with the same date in the corners on Elizabeth Street, undoubtedly the work of the same anonymous contractor.

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Elizabeth St., unsigned, 1975

I like two things about this front walk on the north side of Elizabeth Street between Shepard and Leslie: the very crisp, angled “1975” in either corner of the front step, and the way the walk forks instead of coming straight forward to the street.

I dislike just one thing about it: the lack of the contractor’s name.