Posted on by bunnyhugger

Call St., missing sidewalk

Today’s entry wraps up my brief tour of the 800 block of Call Street on the old north side. I suppose this could be a “hall of shame” but since I don’t know when it dates from or what the story is behind it, I’ll file it under “curiosities” instead. It’s on the north side of the block, close to the corner of Seventh Avenue.

Inexplicably, despite the rest of this block of Call Street having sidewalks, this section has none. It doesn’t appear to be subsided under the grass, or crumbled away. No, it appears that there has never been a sidewalk here. The sidewalk disappears (just after a 1940s DPW stamp) and then reappears before the intersection, and I cannot fathom any reason for this.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

Call St., Eastlund Concrete, 2005

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.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

Call St., Cleghorn Const., 1962

Continuing my look at the 800 block of Call Street between 7th and 8th Avenues: this stamp is on the north side of the street and is a new contractor for this blog! Hooray! The stamp is dated 1962, which is the same year the house it is in front of was built. Perhaps the sidewalk was laid during the construction of the property. The house is the newest one on the block. The next oldest ones are from the 1940s. The majority of houses on the block are from the 1920s, but their next-door neighbor to the west is a house from 1880! It pre-dates the next oldest house on the block by 40 years. Intriguing.

I haven’t had much luck turning up information about Cleghorn Construction. From old State Journal classifieds, I can see that there was a John Cleghorn associated with Capitol City Realty around this time, but I don’t know if there is a connection.

Happy new year to both of my readers!

Posted on by bunnyhugger

Call St., C. Wilkinson, 1964

I picked a street I hadn’t been to before to scout for sidewalk stamps today. The lucky street was Call Street, on the old north side, chosen for being somewhat near an errand I was on. The next few days of blogging will be stamps and curiosities from the 800 block of Call.

Pardon the poor legibility; it was underwater thanks to snow melt.

This is a C. Wilkinson stamp in front of a house on the north side of Call, at the northwest corner of Call and Eighth Avenue. Yes, Lansing has an Eighth Avenue, a much smaller street than the better-known Eighth Street. There is also a longer Seventh Avenue one block west, but no other numbered avenues I know of. Eighth Street is sensibly named: it is (more or less) the eighth street from the dividing line downtown. I have no idea how Seventh and Eighth Avenues come by their names.

The stamp is located in the puddle seen in this photo. The cross street ahead is Eighth Avenue.

I have found a few C. Wilkinson stamps before, all from the 1960s. I still haven’t been successful finding anything out about C. Wilkinson. I wonder if it might be the Charles H. Wilkinson (1907-1981) who is buried in Evergreen Cemetery, but I have no basis for connecting them other than the name and date, so it’s a long shot.