I almost always stick to the south side of the road when walking past Sparrow on East Michigan Avenue, but continuing my recent effort to record stamps in front of Sparrow, I decided to cross. The stamp from last time was in front of the Professional Building, but this one is in front of Sparrow proper, or at least its parking deck.
Yesterday’s was dated 2004 and this one 2005, but no doubt they were both part of a big Sparrow expansion project that started in 2003.
Continuing my brief tour of the 800 block of Call Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues: this stamp is from the south side of the block. Eastlund Concrete stamps are common enough, but it’s the misprint of the date that got my attention.
I had to stop the car and take a look at this tiny little stub of a street in the Groesbeck neighborhood because I was amazed to see that it not only had a name, it had a sidewalk, on the west side of the block. I found the only stamp on it. The name is mostly illegible, but from experience I can recognize it as an Audia Concrete stamp.
I found myself wondering why the grandiosely-named Somercroft Drive existed. It seems to exist just to serve one of the entrance drives to the adjacent Post Oak elementary school, but it seems like it could have just been a driveway, rather than a named street. That got me wondering whether it used to be longer and perhaps connected to Lake Lansing Road to the north, so when I got home I checked HistoricAerials.com. No, the street has always been this long. It was created when the neighborhood was developed in the 1960s. When it was built, there was nothing north of here but farm fields. Today there is an office park. Perhaps they were leaving open the possibility of expanding the neighborhood to the north.
The sidewalk looks like its only possible use would be for children walking to and from Post Oak school, although it is on the wrong side of the road for that and does not connect with any path that leads to the school. In fact, given that it seems like a relatively low-use sidewalk, I am impressed that it got work done as recently as 2006.
I wonder what the shortest named street in Lansing is. This one has to be in the running.
I headed to a different area tonight in search of more late holiday lights and found a few good ones. One display was in front of this rare, dated O & M stamp. It’s not rare for being an O & M stamp – they’re very common in this style – but rare for being dated. The only other one I’ve found is also 2005 (and nearby).
This was mostly an excuse to show some more neighborhood cheer, so enjoy some lights. I did. (The stamp is about midway along the lot in front of this house.)
I had gotten in the habit of assuming that if I saw an O & M stamp it would be undated. But looky here…
That’s a 2005 stamp on the north side of Prospect Street between Virginia and Rosamond.