This pair of stamps is in front of the building that houses The People’s Kitchen on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Charles and Detroit. I previously covered a Hanneman stamp near these. The east side of the building is occupied by The People’s Kitchen; the west side currently houses JWR Health Services.
This stamp represents an Eastlund Concrete variation I had not yet recorded. Among the several stamps they have used, it’s the only one that gives their city. It’s on a bit of walk between the sidewalk and the street – what I have taken to calling a “curb walk” since I don’t know the real name for it – on the north side of Prospect Street between Bingham and Jones.
The walk – which has seen better days – is unusually long for the breed. This is because of something interesting I have observed in the Prospect Place neighborhood, though I don’t know the significance of it: the sidewalks are inset quite a bit further from the road compared with other east side neighborhoods. This gives the lawns much bigger than usual “extensions.”
“Extension,” I must explain, is the name I have always used for the grass strip between the sidewalk and the street. That’s what my parents called it, so that’s what I called it, and still do. Eventually, though, I noticed that other people didn’t call it that. I’ve heard it called all kinds of things by people from different regions, but seemingly never “the extension.” I began to wonder if it was idiosyncratic to my family, until I discovered the Wikipedia article on (as they call them) road verges. The article contains a list of some examples of regional names for road verges, and among them is “extension lawn,” claimed to be specific to Ann Arbor, Michigan (citation needed). I grew up in Ann Arbor. That said, I never heard “extension lawn,” just plain “extension.” I did a bit more poking around and discovered that Ann Arbor’s municipal code in fact uses the name “lawn extension” (not “extension lawn,” Wikipedia) for it. One thing I do remember from my youth in Ann Arbor is that the extension is a frequent cause of fights between the city and homeowners over whether anything can be planted there besides grass.
Lansing’s municipal code has its own name for this piece of land: “parkway.” I don’t think I have ever heard a Lansingite use that in conversation. I think the most common name for it here is “the-right-of-way,” which is correct but not specific: as the terms are used in the city code, the parkway as a right-of-way, but not all right-of-ways are parkways. The code also makes clear that “No plant, shrub or tree shall be planted or allowed to grow in the right-of-way unless authorized by the Director of Public Service” (1020.03, “Maintenance of Parkways”). In stark contrast to Ann Arbor, I see no evidence this rule is ever enforced. It’s nearly as common to see violation of it as compliance.
This one is in front of the vacant lot at the southwest corner of East Michigan Avenue and Charles Street, which puts it just outside the Lansing city limits in Lansing Township. It’s on the apron of one of the two driveways that used to lead into the parking lot of Theio’s diner.
Most people interested enough in Lansing to read this blog probably already know all about Theio’s, but for the sake of anyone else, it was a 24-hour diner that had been a neighborhood fixture since the 1960s. It was the only 24-hour diner in this part of town and for at least some part of my time in Lansing it might have been the only one, period. I was in there countless times, probably starting in 1999, when this stamp was still pretty new. My visits there spanned two husbands and several circles of friends. It was at its best in the earlier years, though there was an especially happy period for a few years in the 2010s when a crowd of people from the Lansing Pinball League would usually go there for conversation and hijinks after league got out.
In 2017 a new owner bought the place and it went very rapidly downhill. After a short time it was sold again, and things got even worse. The newest owner fired most of the longtime employees (and apparently forgot to get the social media passwords first, because their official Facebook page started to post angrily and entertainingly against the new ownership for a little while), the service got worse, and they started to cut back on offerings (one of the league folks tried to order a waffle and was told they had sold the waffle machine). At some point they turned around and sold it to yet another owner; Then the really unfortunate change happened: they quit being 24 hours and switched to serving breakfast and lunch only. A good chunk of their business came from the post-bar crowd and other night owls, so this was a bizarre move. Once that happened, it ended our pinball league after-parties and I never went there again. The end was very near at that point.
In March of 2018, Theio’s was condemned by the township building inspector for electrical issues. It never reopened. In October, the owner, probably encouraged by the real estate speculation that has been going on in this neighborhood, demolished the venerable restaurant and tried to put the land up for sale for something hilarious. I seem to recall it was listed for something laughably high, like $400,000, but don’t cite me on that. It’s not currently for sale as far as I can see, so it just sits there looking sad and reminding me of what I’m missing – what everyone around here is missing.
RIP Theio’s. Your coffee was as strong as a day-old kitten, but your French toast was faultless.