I went to MSU’s campus for the first time in years today, and rambled around once-familiar places that now feel like somewhere remembered from a dream. Outside the Auditorium Road approach to my old haunt, South Kedzie Hall, I found this stamp.
I presume the TCI behind this is the one from Eaton Rapids, Michigan. Google reviews suggest it went out of business within the last couple of years.
My apologies for disappearing last week (if anyone noticed). It’s gotten warm enough to see the sidewalks again so here’s a fairly uneventful curiosity I noticed over in the Midway subdivision: two Able Concrete stamps, done the same year, but in two different styles.
The semicircular one is on the house’s driveway, and the plain one is on the front walk. I have to guess they were done on two different occasions, because the alternative is that they brought two different stamps with them just for variety’s sake. As fun as that idea is, it doesn’t seem likely.
This is on the north side of Lasalle Gardens between Kipling and Midvale.
I assume this is graffiti, though the name/date format and the placement almost suggests a handwritten contractor marking. But, for Little Christmas, please enjoy the well-lit house I found it in front of. It’s on the west side of North Hayford Avenue between Fernwood and Saginaw.
We took our (nearly) annual roller coaster vacation to California this year, to visit a few parks in and near the southern Bay Area. One of those parks was Gilroy Gardens in Gilroy, California, the so-called Garlic Capital of the World. It’s an arrestingly scenic park, less an amusement park than a botanical garden that has some rides. One of their most popular rides are paddle boats in the shape of ducks, geese, and swans, which give you free roam in the small lake at the center of the park. It was on a bridge near the boats that my husband spotted a sidewalk stamp.
One of the posts for the guardrail has obliterated the first few letters of the contractor’s name, but I looked at a list of concrete contractors in Morgan Hill and the only one that matches is Sycamore Concrete Construction. Unfortunately I can’t find a Web site or any other information about them, except for a listing at OpenCorporates which shows the corporation being founded in 1985 and dissolved in 2022.
It seems odd that they bothered stamping a spot where it would end up being illegible, but I have to assume they did not know where the guardrail was going to be placed when they did the stamping. Maybe it was a later addition and the original fence was outside the concrete.
All right, here’s the last of the sidewalk stamps I collected walking to and from the Fox Theatre from a parking lot on Montcalm. This one is from our evening walk back, after having seen Trevor Horn perform as a solitary Buggle in support of Seal. It’s right in front of the 127 W. Fischer lot’s entrance on the north side of Montcalm between Park and Clifford.
I’m disappointed that Nagle Paving Company does not have a company history on their Web site. Their About page says that they have “over 60 years of experience” and that they’re a union shop but that’s about all I can tell you about them. Their main line of business actually seems to be asphalt paving, though they do have a page advertising their concrete installation services.
Odd that so many of the stamps in this area are from 2017 yet are all from different contractors. I would have thought that if a bunch of work (either sidewalk work, or utility work necessitating sidewalk replacement) was being done by the city around the same time they would use the same contractor.
We’re getting very close to our destination at the Fox Theatre today. This stamp is at the northwest corner of West Montcalm Street and Woodward Avenue, on Montcalm. It’s in front of the City Theatre.
Colasanti’s Web site currently calls them Colasanti Construction Services, Inc., without reference to “Specialty Services,” but some cross-referencing confirms that they are the same company. They were founded in 1953. Their Management Team page lists Angelo Colasanti with the title “Founder,” but it says “Angelo joined the company when it was established by his father, Rocco, in 1953.” Doesn’t that make Rocco the founder? I suppose they could be co-founders, but if Rocco established the company I still think that gives him priority as being the founder. Well, it’s their business, so who am I to say? Just some rando who blogs obsessive about sidewalk markings, that’s who.
Here’s another stamp from the Foxtown district in Detroit, on West Montcalm Street at the northeast corner of Montcalm and Park Avenue. It’s next to the Colony Club building (which faces Park).
I can’t tell you anything about Rayco Utility Inc. There’s a Rayco Utility Services based in Troy, but they seem to be a trucking company, so I’m not sure if it’s the same business or not.
My husband and I went to the Fox Theatre in Detroit last night to see one of my very favorite bands, Buggles, open for Seal. That’s why this entry is the very first one for a stamp located in the city of Detroit proper. In fact, I quickly discovered that the Foxtown area hosts a splendid menagerie of contractor stamps, and I had to quit pausing to take a photo of every one I saw or else we would be late for the show.
This particular stamp is on the north side of West Montcalm Street between Park and Clifford, next to a parking lot. I am guessing CES might be Corby Energy Services, which “provides construction, engineering and support services to utilities and related businesses throughout southeastern Michigan, Indiana and Ohio,” especially because this sidewalk block surrounds a utility hole cover.
Here’s another one that has been hiding from me in a spot I’ve traveled often enough. I think I can see why: it’s quite worn and probably visible only in good light. It’s on the east side of Lathrop Street, south of Elizabeth.
I have only found one other stamp by this contractor, so this is a rare one. XMC is, by my best guess, short for <guitar-lick>Xtreme Mason Contractors</guitar-lick>, a contractor from Laingsburg. The last digit of the date is a little uncertain but my best guess is that it’s a 2.
It’s somewhat unusual to find a dated O & M (city Operations and Maintenance) stamp in any case, but especially rare in the southern reaches of the Urbandale neigborhood. This one is near the dead end (south of Horton, north of I-496) on the west side of the street.
