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Jones St., BBRPCI, 1984

I saw this BBRPCI stamp on the east side of Jones Street, between Kalamazoo and Prospect, on my walk tonight. It’s not very interesting. There are similar ones all over the neighborhood, and I’ve covered lots of them in the blog. It’s definitely not the most interesting stamp in the vicinity, since there is a Minnis and Ewer stamp dated June 1910 one lot north.

The stamp is illuminated by a streetlight overhead, hence the color.

But this is the real reason I stopped here for photos. The rambling old house this stamp is in front of – while checking the address in the city’s property records, I noticed it was built in 1898 – is decorated to the nines for Halloween. The big street tree out front is festooned with caution tape and haunted by a black-cloaked phantom. There are decorations on the porch and on the adjacent yard (the house seems to be on a double lot). I wish people on my block decorated, but I’m the only person who does much.

Here, enjoy a few photos.

I try to walk different streets throughout the spooky season in search of decorations I haven’t seen yet, and this was a new display to me. When I walk around this neighborhood, I usually stay on Prospect and miss anything south of there, so I’m glad I tried checking some of the north/south streets for displays. I also found a nice one on Virginia.

A view of the lighted spot where the stamp is, for context. East Kalamazoo Street is in view. What looks like streaks of rain is actually caution tape fluttering from the branches of the street tree.
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E. Michigan Ave., BBRPCI, 1988

I heard that there was a fire at the house behind Liz’s Alteration Shop (on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Leslie and Regent), so I walked over to see how bad it looks. Unfortunately, the answer is pretty bad. Liz McMurray, who was featured in the 2022 People Issue of the City Pulse, owns the property and lives in the house, but she was out of town when it happened. The firefighters were fortunately able to save some important sentimental items including her family Bible.

I decided I might as well get this shot of a BBRPCI stamp while I was there.

According to the city’s records, the house and the attached shopfront were both built in 1912. Liz’s Alteration Shop has been there since 1978.

Everything looks normal from this angle. The stamp is near the closest flower pot, there.
Unfortunately, here you can see how bad the attic and second floor look. I read that it did not damage the shop.

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Hickory St., BBRPCI, 1985

I failed trying to collect the interesting unknown stamp on Hickory Street again. It was too dark by the time I managed to get there after work, and the nearest street light was out. I had to settle for this BBRPCI stamp next door. This is on the south side of Hickory between Euclid and Pennsylvania. It’s also quite close to the J.F. Sowa home that I wrote about previously.

Thank you, whoever lives here, for salting your sidewalk!

While I was scouting, I heard a tremendous rumbling, which was a train coming on the nearby tracks, on the other side of Euclid. I walked to the end of the street to watch it. It was quite loud as it passed, reminding me of my parents’ old house (which I lived in during school breaks from college). It was close to the railroad tracks in Chelsea, and a train would go by every night. At first it woke me all the time, but eventually it didn’t anymore.

The stamp is not really visible here, but it’s near the lower edge of the photo.
The train passing. The top of Boji Tower is visible beyond.
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Narcissus Dr., East Lansing, BBRPCI, 2001

Yesterday I made a largely failed attempt to scout a new neighborhood for interesting stamps. I decided to go to the Flowerpot neighborhood, which I had heard of but never been to before, to the best of my recollection. It is a cluster of streets mostly named for flowers (hence the name) located at the western edge of East Lansing south of Kalamazoo. This little pocket of land is an area of town that has always been vague and fuzzy in my mental map of Lansing. I tend to think of Kalamazoo as leaving the east edge of Lansing, going through a sad little slice of Lansing Township near the freeway overpass, and then just cutting through a short, indistinct area of nothing before getting to MSU. The Flowerpot neighborhood is hidden away in that “short, indistinct area” which isn’t quite as “nothing” as my mental map makes it out to be.

I thought it would be interesting to see the neighborhood and perhaps find stamps that are contemporary to the development of the streets, but my trip wasn’t so lucky. First of all, nearly all the streets are marked as no parking at any time on both sides, so a quick stop on my way home from work turned into a parking hassle. Second, I quickly discovered that most of the streets have no sidewalks (and no curbs either, giving it a rural look). Only the two longest ones, Marigold and Narcissus, have sidewalks. Third, on a short walk as dusk started to settle in, I wasn’t able to find any interesting stamps. Most were Able or L & L stamps from the 90s and 2000s. I finally had to give up and shoot this BBRPCI stamp on the west side of Narcissus Drive, between Lilac Avenue and Daisy Lane, before I ran out of light.

Still, it was interesting to see the neighborhood, and it struck me that it seems like it is probably a great place to trick-or-treat. ELi (East Lansing Info, the East Lansing digital newspaper) has an interesting article on the history of the Flowerpot neighborhood. The article explained something that puzzled me on my visit, which is why all the streets were named for flowers except the theme-breaking “Hicks Drive.” It was originally the Hicks farm until the Hicks family began selling lots from it in the 1920s.

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E. Michigan Ave., BBRPCI, 1988

After I did a stamp in front of Mercy Ambulance, I figured I would follow up by doing one in front of the Medical Arts Building one block east, on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Ferguson and Holmes. As with Mercy Ambulance, there is something about the starkly modern building that appeals to me. In this case, the oversized caduceus on the front face, though a controversial choice, is certainly a large part of the charm.

I hadn’t realized that this building is owned by Sparrow Hospital, though I wasn’t very surprised to learn it, either. This whole area of downtown Lansing is the land of Sparrow Hospital, and it continues to spread. A clipping from the October 25, 1963, State Journal (courtesy of fellow local history enthusiast Timothy Bowman and his very useful Flickr site) has a photograph of it with a caption saying it “is expected to be completed this week.” (The city’s property records give a construction date of 1964.) The caption goes on to say “It is the largest building of its kind in the Lansing area.” In the photograph it looks just as it does now (minus some rust stains), proving the vintage of the giant caduceus, if there were any doubt. It does not appear to have been a Sparrow property at the start. I’m not sure when Sparrow acquired it.

Looking southwest at the Medical Arts Building. The stamp is located just past the tree whose branch can be seen on the right.

The stamp is from BBRPCI, who have stamped quite a lot of sidewalk on this part of Michigan Avenue. I was hoping to find a stamp contemporary to the building, but no such luck. There are a few blocks of especially coarse concrete that look different from and older than most of the surrounding sidewalk, so maybe those are remnants of the original construction.

Looking west on Michigan. The stamp is on the lower left block, facing the other way. Note the two coarser blocks left and right of center.

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E. Grand River Ave., BBRPCI, 2003

Here is a run-of-the-mill BBRPCI (BBR Progressive Concrete Inc.) stamp from the south side of East Grand River Avenue between Wood Street and Fairview Avenue. It is in front of Pattengill Biotechnical Academy, which should not be confused with Pattengill Middle School. Let me see if I can keep this shell game of east side schools straight: Pattengill Middle School was in the new(ish) building by the Armory, having moved there from its original location on Jerome Street (where it was known for much of its history as Pattengill Junior High). Pattengill Middle School closed in 2013 (and now that building houses Eastern High School). In 2018, the old Fairview School, which had been an elementary school, was transformed into Pattengill Biotechnical Academy. I don’t know why they reused the Pattengill name since the current Pattengill is evidently an elementary school, spanning pre-K to grade 6. I also would really like to know what the hell a specialized “biotechnical” pre-K education looks like.

It’s a good thing I don’t have kids because I find the array of schools in the district completely incomprehensible. There are high schools that start at grade 7, “academies” that go to grade 6, schools that somehow aren’t officially listed as “academies” but still have academy-like thematic names, and a very small number of I guess regular middle schools except they are grades 4-6 which is younger than what I think of as middle school. Also even the non-magnet schools have “STEAM” randomly peppered into their names.

Pattengill Biotechnical Academy, seen from the Grand River side. The city’s online records don’t have the date of construction listed for some reason, but it looks 1950s to me. The stamp is in the shadow.

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Jerome St., BBRPCI, 1985

Nothing too special here except the charming practice I have seen a few times from other contractors, stamping both ends of the same square, facing opposite directions. It seems to be a way of indicating that they are only laying a single block. This double-stamped block is on the north side of Jerome Street between Custer and Ferguson.

One end of the slab…
… the other end. I realize now that I failed to take an overview showing the whole thing.

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E. Michigan Ave., BBRPCI, 1986

This pair of stamps is on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Fairview and Magnolia. It’s hard to read the date in one of them, but the other is quite clear and I am going to assume they were done together.

The stamps are in front of the closed Hotwater Works building, until recently a neighborhood staple. It was, somehow, both a hot tub retailer and a jam space for local musicians. The side facing the now-vacant lot was painted with a couple of different murals over the years, the first one depicting a fairy with the command “RELAX” and the second one featuring a group of Japanese macaques bathing. I never had any reason to go in there, but in a way, I just liked it being there. It seemed like an offbeat place to anchor an offbeat neighborhood. Here is a short article about the history of the business from radio station WDBM.

Sadly, they closed up in early 2020. Surprisingly, this wasn’t a COVID loss: they were having their liquidation sale already in February. I suspect the beginning of the end actually came in 2017 when the original owner, James McFarland, died. I note from city records that the property was sold by McFarland’s estate in January 2020 to “McFarland Sisters Enter L L C.” I imagine that the hot tub business wasn’t what it once was, and the family decided the real estate was more valuable.

Looking east on East Michigan Avenue.

As for the history of the property, it was built in 1947 as Bagger Trailer Sales, and was sold to George H. Rowley in 1952 to become an auto agency. It spent a while as a B.F. Goodrich tire shop in the 1970s, and then in the 1980s and 90s was Delphi Stained Glass. Hotwater Works moved in around 1997.

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E. Michigan Ave., BBRPCI, 1986

Here is a BBRPCI (BBR Progressive Concrete, Inc.) stamp from 1986. It’s in front of Liberty Christian Church, which is on the north side of East Michigan Avenue between Magnolia and Hayford. The stamp is nothing special but I was a little curious about the church.

The city’s property database claims the various buildings that make up the church were all built in 2011. This is plainly not true, and I’m not sure why it says that. Fortunately, I discovered that the church is up for sale and the real estate listing states that it was built in 1927 for the Olivet Baptist Church. It also contains some obnoxious hype about neighborhood gentrification along with suggestions about converting it into a nightclub or apartments or something. Gross. Anyway, 1927 certainly matches the central core of the church’s architecture but other elements look midcentury to me.

Breeze block in front of the church looking pretty. The stamp is lower center.

I don’t know when Olivet Baptist moved out. They were still there at least as late as 1983, as I can find them referenced in a Lansing State Journal church directory then. Liberty has been there as long as I can remember and based on Google street view, at least by 2007. I would like to do more research into this, but I lack the emotional energy for more research tonight, so I will leave that for another time.

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E. Michigan Ave., BBRPCI, 1986

This nice, sharp BBRPCI (BBR Progressive Concrete Inc.) stamp is on the south side of East Michigan Avenue just east of Fairview.

This corner has been a vacant lot for so long (that For Lease sign has been there since at least 2011, per Google Street View) that I had to jog my memory about what used to be there. It was two buildings, one of them an old house and the other a low-slung, dismal commercial building which most recently was the home base of Shaggin’ Wagon Taxi. Recently it has been the temporary quarters of the Allen Farmers Market during construction on the Allen Neighborhood Center.

Looking east on East Michigan toward the vacant lot’s neighbor, Hotwater Works.

Searching the Lansing State Journal, I turned up perhaps the most unusual business to have occupied the address. In March 1993, a late-night music venue called The Ibex Sings opened. In May 1993 it closed with a farewell party.

They say if you put your ear to the gravel you can still hear a punk show.