2020 – Capital City Sidewalks

Posted on May 27, 2023 by bunnyhugger

W. Montcalm St., Detroit, Thayer, 2020

Continuing my walk from the parking lot to the Fox Theatre in Detroit to the Buggles concert, I saw this stamp. I love how much information is packed into it and how crisp it is. It’s at the northwest corner of West Montcalm Street and Park Avenue, in front of what apparently, prior to 2018 or 2019, used to be the Town Pump Tavern.

According to the history page on their Web site, Thayer Power and Communication (or TPC) was founded in 1964 by David Thayer and his (oddly unnamed) brother. They originally set poles for power and telephone companies. Over the years they expanded into installing telephone, power, and eventually fiber lines. They have quite a few offices but most of them are actually in Ohio.

Posted on February 28, 2023 by bunnyhugger

E. Michigan Ave., Cascade Cement Contracting, 2020

I managed to find a contractor stamp I hadn’t done yet! I actually cost myself a bit of time on a virtual 5K I was doing to get the photo. This is from the south side of East Michigan Avenue just west of the railroad tracks near Hill Street. It’s outside the Block600 mixed-use development that includes Meijer’s Capital City Market and the Courtyard by Marriott and probably came about as a result of that construction.

Cascade Cement Contracting is, as the stamp says, based in Caledonia, which is a suburb of Grand Rapids. According to their Web site, they were founded in 1972 by a pair of brothers who had emigrated from the Netherlands in the 1960s.

The stamp is on the other side of the curb.

Posted on July 5, 2022 by bunnyhugger

Rumsey Ave., Don Plantz, 2020

Here’s a new stamp for the blog. Unfortunately I can’t tell you much about it that isn’t right there on the tin. Don Plantz Concrete, LLC, has no Web site that I can find, but OpenCorporates says it was incorporated in 2018 in East Lansing, and it seems to still be active.

This stamp is on the driveway of a house on the west side of Rumsey Avenue’s northernmost block.

Posted on April 18, 2021April 18, 2021 by bunnyhugger

Hall of Shame: S. Fairview Ave., unsigned, 2020

The second inductee into the Hall of Shame is this stretch of new sidewalk on the northwest corner of South Fairview Avenue and Elizabeth Street. It has not been stamped, which is in clear violation of the city code on sidewalk marking!

The graffiti, at least, allows us to determine that the sidewalk was poured in June 2020.

Posted on September 25, 2020September 25, 2020 by bunnyhugger

S. Magnolia Ave., White Hawk, 2020

I was excited when my husband alerted me to the newest sidewalk in the neighborhood, so I made sure to head that way on my walk today. This is my youngest stamp yet. The caution tape was still in place! It turned out that a significant portion of the sidewalk along the west side of South Magnolia Avenue between Kalamazoo and Marcus is new, and across the street they seem to be preparing to do more. I also saw some new ones around the corner on Marcus Street.

I’m a little worried that the date doesn’t seem like a deep impression on any of their stamps. Some future sidewalk stamp chronicler may have trouble making it out.

I’ve never seen a stamp from this company before, and I haven’t learned much about them. They don’t have a Web site. I found them on OpenCorporates (a site I’m glad I discovered) where it says that White Hawk Concrete, L.L.C., incorporated in 2018 and has an address on Rundle Avenue. I had never heard of Rundle Avenue either, but it turns out it is in the Moores Park neighborhood, the land of twisty streets.