Posted on by bunnyhugger

W. Lake Lansing Rd., E.R. Premoe, 1987

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.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

S. Francis Ave., Cantu & Sons, 1987

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.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

Regent St., Cantu & Sons, 1987

Nothing much to bring you tonight, so here’s another one of the usual Regent Street suspects, this one on the east side of the 400 block, between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth. It does occur to me that it’s odd that there are both 1987 and 1988 stamps from Cantu on the same blocks. I have been assuming that there was a big, mass sidewalk replacement project that Cantu got the contract for, and that it took them more than one year to do it. I would have thought they would do one block or street at a time, however, and that all the ones in one area would be the same year. Instead the ’87s and a couple of different styles of ’88s are intermixed.

Looking north on Regent, with one of the nice street trees watching over the stamp.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

E. Michigan Ave., Ameri-Construction, 1987

This stamp is on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Shepard and Allen, in front of Tannin. The “7” appears written on after stamping, though whether it is covering up an outdated number or is just reinforcing a number that didn’t print well, I can’t tell.

Tannin is an upscale Italian fusion restaurant, not the kind of place that appeals to me so I haven’t been there. It replaced the original location of a small local Mediterranean fast food chain called Tabooli, which was one of the go-to lunch spots for my husband and me. (Tabooli still has two other locations, but they aren’t as convenient for us.) Tabooli had opened in 2014 after renovating a former KFC. I was glad they did, because seeing that KFC inevitably made me think of the name that had gotten indelibly attached to it in my mind: “the Murder KFC.” In 2011 an employee was killed during an armed robbery. I’m not sure whether it ever opened again after the murder, but it had certainly been abandoned for some time before Tabooli moved in.

Awnings or not, it still kinda looks like a KFC.

The building only dates to 1987 according to the city’s parcel records, but there was a KFC at that address at least as far back as 1968, per an advertisement in the State News (MSU’s student paper) on December 7. The only previous mention of that address that I can find is in a news brief in the August 18, 1955, [Lansing] State Journal:

$10 Stolen – Lansing police detectives are Investigating the burglary of the Pure Oil station at 1620 E. Michigan Ave. Wednesday evening. Detectives said the burglars gained entry through a window and stole $10 in coins from a vending machine.

Since the date of the stamp matches the construction date of the building, it seems possible that the sidewalk repair and the building’s construction were linked.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

Regent St., Cantu & Sons, 1987

I bet you think this is the same stamp I did yesterday, since this one is also on the east side of Regent Street’s 400 block between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth. Wrong! This one is… a couple of lots over. But you know this one is different because it’s next to my nemesis, the Super Bright Streetlight.

A few years ago, someone apparently ran a car into the old one that stood here and it broke into three pieces. It was lying on the yard next door for a little while before it was cleared away, and during that time I discovered that the globe is not, as I had always assumed, glass, but instead a surprisingly light piece of plastic that looks rather cheap up close. I felt the scales fall from my eyes and I have never looked at the street lamps in the city the same way again.

The worst streetlight on Regent Street, presiding over today’s stamp.

When they replaced it, the new one was worse in two ways. It never got painted white to match the other streetlights in the area. Instead it is just rust colored, and in fact the color seems to be authentic rust, although my father has the minority opinion that it’s actually primer. Every time I see it, I think of someone insulting a car in Grease: “What color is that, candy apple primer?”

The other way is that instead of the dimmer, yellow sodium appearance, it has been given an LED makeover and is now a bluish-white color, brighter than the sun. Note how it appears to be going supernova in my photo.

For a while I cursed the driver who subjected my block to this new lamp, but soon the LED issue will be moot, because they are planning to comprehensively replace all the lamps with LEDs in this neighborhood by 2022.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

Regent St., Cantu & Sons, 1987

I took this in the morning (the other morning, the one you might call “yesterday morning” if you have subsequently slept) before a day at Cedar Point. It’s on the east side of Regent Street’s 400 block, between Kalamazoo and Michigan.

We got into automotive shenanigans on the way home that will probably be funny to retell someday, but that day isn’t today and I’m not awake enough in any case. OK, one tidbit: I ended up walking home from the US-127 exit at Kalmazoo through two-foot-plus deep water at 3:30 am and then getting sprayed by a skunk.

In case you don’t know what the 400 block of Regent looks like yet.
Posted on by bunnyhugger

Regent St., Cantu & Sons, 1987

My day was just packed, and I had to take my walk late at night, so you’ll have to make do with this 1987 Cantu & Sons stamp from the east side of Regent Street’s 400 block, between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth. It’s out in front of a tiny, cute 1916 bungalow that regrettably snugs right up against the parking lot of the business formerly known as Lucky’s. Unfortunately it was too dark to get a context photo.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

E. Michigan Ave., unsigned, 1987

I ran across this date without a name on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Ferguson and Clifford. The placement of the date at the lower right is reminiscent of a BWL stamp, but they usually stamp their name at the lower left. I don’t see any remnants of a name at the lower left corner, but it’s worn, so I can’t rule it out.

The lower left corner.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

Regent St., Cantu & Sons, 1987

I had a very busy and exhausting day (and have two more ahead of me) so this one is a placeholder. I mean, this one is for the planned Regent Street Catalog Project. The stamps are a pair on the west side of Regent Street between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth, on the 400 block. They are alongside the Auto Surgeon on the corner of Kalamazoo and Regent.

This is the northern stamp of the presumed pair.
The northern stamp is on the nearest full block in this picture.
The southern stamp of the pair.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

Mifflin Ave., Cantu & Sons, 1987

This stamp is on the west side of Mifflin Avenue between Michigan and Prospect. It could only be on the west side; the east side of Mifflin Avenue has no sidewalk, even though there are residences on both sides. There is (I believe) a clear explanation for this: the border between the city of Lansing and Lansing Township runs down the center of the street. I have observed that Lansing typically installs a sidewalk on any block that has residences. Lansing Township is largely uninterested in sidewalks.

Mifflin Avenue doesn’t serve as the shining example of Lansing sidewalk superiority that this would suggest. The sidewalk on Mifflin is awful, some of the worst I’ve found on the east side. Many slabs have subsided far enough to be partially or fully covered in a layer of mud and weeds. Many are crumbled. Walking from Kalamazoo to Michigan, I noticed that all the stamps were Cantu 1987 marks like this one. Notably, that suggests little or no sidewalk work has happened on this block since 1987. It shows.

Looking north on Mifflin Avenue. This is actually the best stretch of sidewalk on the block. I should have faced the other way.