On a pleasant early-afternoon walk in search of Halloween decorations, I came across these stamps from a contractor I haven’t noticed before. They are on the west side of Kipling Boulevard between Lasalle and Fernwood. There are two, a short distance apart, which means they probably marked the beginning and end of a section of new concrete.
One of the stamps has a date stamped underneath, though faintly enough that I thought it was undated until I looked at my photo afterward. My phone tends to put a lot of contrast on photos and that popped it out. Curiously, the other stamp has a much clearer but handwritten date.
This Eastlund Concrete stamp is on a curb cut leading to the walkway to the side (Prospect Street) door of the former Unity Church on the corner of Prospect and Holmes, which I’ve written some about previously.
I pass the former church a lot and I’m sad to see that it’s still in a state of abandonment after its fire in 2019. Someone bought it and got the zoning changed to allow it to be converted into apartments. Granted, I can’t see inside, but I have the impression that renovation activity ceased at least a year ago.
This is the next house east from my last entry, also on the south side of Prospect between Clifford and Lathrop, also on the driveway apron. It would be nice to think that perhaps they were doing all the driveways around this time and therefore I could date the eternally undateable William Haskins, but sadly I find it doubtful. The style of the Haskins stamps just doesn’t suggest 1980s to me.
As has been noted here before, I like the way that sidewalk stamps lend texture to the snow when it has freshly fallen on the sidewalk. So, since it was too snowy to find anything interesting tonight, enjoy a couple of glamour shots. No doubt this is a Cantu & Sons stamp, probably from 1987 or 1988, but I didn’t want to disturb the snow to find out. This is from the east side of Regent Street just north of Kalamazoo.
I more or less randomly picked a new neighborhood to look at today, mainly because it was on my way home from work. Originally I wanted to see if there was anything interesting on Harrison near West Lake Lansing Road, but on my way there I happened to see a cul-de-sac I hadn’t noticed before. Its dead end is so close to the south side of Lake Lansing that they almost intersect. I made the next turn and wove my way through seemingly endless meandering subdivision streets until I eventually found my way back to it. It turns out to be Rollingbrook Lane. I walked around near the end of it a little, but the only stamps I found were several 2007 Able stamps. They were on obvious replacement slabs. Most of the neighborhood, however, had the pebblier style of concrete I’ve come to associate with midcentury stamps. Disappointed, I walked up to Lake Lansing Road to see if I could find anything interesting there.
There I found an older stamp from E.R. Premoe (and lots more Able 2007), but nothing too interesting. I did get a nice sunset view of the Coolidge Court strip mall and its modernist architecture. Though Rollingbrook does not intersect Lake Lansing as far as cars are concerned, the two streets do have a corner – a sidewalk corner.
I saw this BBRPCI stamp on the east side of Jones Street, between Kalamazoo and Prospect, on my walk tonight. It’s not very interesting. There are similar ones all over the neighborhood, and I’ve covered lots of them in the blog. It’s definitely not the most interesting stamp in the vicinity, since there is a Minnis and Ewer stamp dated June 1910 one lot north.
The stamp is illuminated by a streetlight overhead, hence the color.
But this is the real reason I stopped here for photos. The rambling old house this stamp is in front of – while checking the address in the city’s property records, I noticed it was built in 1898 – is decorated to the nines for Halloween. The big street tree out front is festooned with caution tape and haunted by a black-cloaked phantom. There are decorations on the porch and on the adjacent yard (the house seems to be on a double lot). I wish people on my block decorated, but I’m the only person who does much.
Here, enjoy a few photos.
I try to walk different streets throughout the spooky season in search of decorations I haven’t seen yet, and this was a new display to me. When I walk around this neighborhood, I usually stay on Prospect and miss anything south of there, so I’m glad I tried checking some of the north/south streets for displays. I also found a nice one on Virginia.
A view of the lighted spot where the stamp is, for context. East Kalamazoo Street is in view. What looks like streaks of rain is actually caution tape fluttering from the branches of the street tree.
This stamp is from Lathrop Street south of Elizabeth, on the west side of the street. The sidewalk ends here. On the east side of the street it continues, as Lathrop curves around to meet Allen. Unlike other streets nearby that were truncated by the construction of I-496 in the late 1960s, Lathrop would always have ended more or less here, because Stabler Park lay to the south. The turn that joins Lathrop to Allen is now a bit diagonal, in parallel to 496, whereas it used to be more squared off (as I can see on HistoricAerials.com). The result is that while the last house on the east side has survived, the last two on the west side were 496 casualties.
The stamp is on the very last piece of sidewalk on the west side, and I find it odd that it extends a little past the driveway for no apparent reason. Since it’s dated 1988, it was laid long after any houses existed to the south. My guess is that it marks the lot line. The doomed house that used to be next door to this one, 628 Lathrop, sold in 1957 for $6,800 cash. The real estate card notes that it had a dark room in the basement.
A view of the stamp from the south. It’s on the closest edge, facing this way.
Past the fence is I-496, but once upon a time Stabler Park would have been over there.
This is from the very last, sad-looking piece of sidewalk on the west side of the south end of South Francis Avenue, in the beleaguered Urbandale neighborhood. The sidewalk peters out at the southern end of the southernmost house’s lot. Unlike on the other side of the street which has had its sidewalk removed, it appears that the sidewalk may always have ended here, based on there being no trace of it in the 2007 Google Street View. The stamp looks off-center, but only because the sidewalk is sinking into the earth on the left.
Oddly, the vacant land south of here (at least part of which is occupied by an urban farm) is owned by the City of Lansing Parks and Recreation Department. A lot of parcels on the southernmost blocks of Urbandale are owned by the city or the county, but the puzzling part is what the Parks Department’s involvement is in this. I haven’t seen that in other city-owned lots. The boundary sketch of it in the city records show a fairly large piece of land that stretches way out to the west behind Foster Avenue, where it forms an L-shape around something labeled “DNR Polluted Site.” I’d like to know more about that, too.
I heard that there was a fire at the house behind Liz’s Alteration Shop (on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Leslie and Regent), so I walked over to see how bad it looks. Unfortunately, the answer is pretty bad. Liz McMurray, who was featured in the 2022 People Issue of the City Pulse, owns the property and lives in the house, but she was out of town when it happened. The firefighters were fortunately able to save some important sentimental items including her family Bible.
I decided I might as well get this shot of a BBRPCI stamp while I was there.
According to the city’s records, the house and the attached shopfront were both built in 1912. Liz’s Alteration Shop has been there since 1978.
Everything looks normal from this angle. The stamp is near the closest flower pot, there.
Unfortunately, here you can see how bad the attic and second floor look. I read that it did not damage the shop.
I failed trying to collect the interesting unknown stamp on Hickory Street again. It was too dark by the time I managed to get there after work, and the nearest street light was out. I had to settle for this BBRPCI stamp next door. This is on the south side of Hickory between Euclid and Pennsylvania. It’s also quite close to the J.F. Sowa home that I wrote about previously.
Thank you, whoever lives here, for salting your sidewalk!
While I was scouting, I heard a tremendous rumbling, which was a train coming on the nearby tracks, on the other side of Euclid. I walked to the end of the street to watch it. It was quite loud as it passed, reminding me of my parents’ old house (which I lived in during school breaks from college). It was close to the railroad tracks in Chelsea, and a train would go by every night. At first it woke me all the time, but eventually it didn’t anymore.
The stamp is not really visible here, but it’s near the lower edge of the photo.
The train passing. The top of Boji Tower is visible beyond.
