Yes, I’m still mining the construction area on the east end of Kalamazoo, in Lansing Township. This new sidewalk is in front of the former East Side Foreign Car building on the south side of East Kalamazoo Street between Charles and Detroit Streets. Previously, there was none here, just a thin strip of lawn in front of a white picket fence.
This stamp is at the curb, facing toward the road.
A look at the bus stop, currently closed due to the construction.
In addition to the new sidewalk, they have installed a concrete area at the curb (what I have sometimes referred to as a “curb walk” since I don’t know a proper name for it) for people to stand on while waiting at the bus stop. Previously, people waiting for the bus would have to stand on the little strip of grass in front of the curb. This is a much more hospitable bus stop.
The new sidewalk continuing east past the old East Side Foreign Car building. There was no sidewalk here before.
Are you tired of extremely faint stamps from Horton Avenue yet? Well, life is hard. This is a very nearly invisible stamp that I noticed only because I have started actively looking at “curb walks” for stamps. (I don’t know what I am supposed to call them, but “curb walk” is my name for little bits of sidewalk that run across someone’s extension to the curb, and “extension” is my name for what Lansing’s municipal code calls a “parkway”). This one is on the east side of Horton Avenue (yes Avenue, I keep forgetting that it’s an Avenue and not a Street, Google Maps notwithstanding) between Michigan and Jerome.
Yeah, you might have to take my word for it that there’s a stamp here.
I believe it may be a Cantu & Sons stamp, specifically the “Cantu & Sons Cement Cont” variety, because I can make out part of the word “cement” in the lower row of the stamp, and an N above it in the upper row. The date is a lost cause.
This stamp represents an Eastlund Concrete variation I had not yet recorded. Among the several stamps they have used, it’s the only one that gives their city. It’s on a bit of walk between the sidewalk and the street – what I have taken to calling a “curb walk” since I don’t know the real name for it – on the north side of Prospect Street between Bingham and Jones.
The walk – which has seen better days – is unusually long for the breed. This is because of something interesting I have observed in the Prospect Place neighborhood, though I don’t know the significance of it: the sidewalks are inset quite a bit further from the road compared with other east side neighborhoods. This gives the lawns much bigger than usual “extensions.”
The stamp is at the very bottom of the (relatively long) curb walk. Note how wide the extension is – perhaps twice as wide as my own house’s.
“Extension,” I must explain, is the name I have always used for the grass strip between the sidewalk and the street. That’s what my parents called it, so that’s what I called it, and still do. Eventually, though, I noticed that other people didn’t call it that. I’ve heard it called all kinds of things by people from different regions, but seemingly never “the extension.” I began to wonder if it was idiosyncratic to my family, until I discovered the Wikipedia article on (as they call them) road verges. The article contains a list of some examples of regional names for road verges, and among them is “extension lawn,” claimed to be specific to Ann Arbor, Michigan (citation needed). I grew up in Ann Arbor. That said, I never heard “extension lawn,” just plain “extension.” I did a bit more poking around and discovered that Ann Arbor’s municipal code in fact uses the name “lawn extension” (not “extension lawn,” Wikipedia) for it. One thing I do remember from my youth in Ann Arbor is that the extension is a frequent cause of fights between the city and homeowners over whether anything can be planted there besides grass.
Lansing’s municipal code has its own name for this piece of land: “parkway.” I don’t think I have ever heard a Lansingite use that in conversation. I think the most common name for it here is “the-right-of-way,” which is correct but not specific: as the terms are used in the city code, the parkway as a right-of-way, but not all right-of-ways are parkways. The code also makes clear that “No plant, shrub or tree shall be planted or allowed to grow in the right-of-way unless authorized by the Director of Public Service” (1020.03, “Maintenance of Parkways”). In stark contrast to Ann Arbor, I see no evidence this rule is ever enforced. It’s nearly as common to see violation of it as compliance.
More Urbandale meandering today. Near the southernmost end of South Fairview Avenue, just south of the barely-existing-street known as Harton, I found this curb walk stamped by W.P. Bowerman. It’s in front of the only house on the east side of the 700 block, and near the southern end of the sidewalk there. The west side still has sidewalk to the end, at least for now. (And that’s foreshadowing of something I plan to get to soon.)
Where the sidewalk ends, South Fairview. (The stamp is nearest to the curb.)
I went out in search of Halloween decorations on my walk tonight and I found lots of them in the blocks east of Sparrow. It gave me a nice little bit of Halloween spirit in a year where I haven’t gotten to do much. Anyway, I found this L & L “curb walk” on the east side of North Holmes Street between Vine and Jerome.
The house next door to this one also has a curb walk, although most of the houses on this block do not.
Joseph pointed out, in a comment on my recent allegedly undated Minnis & Ewer “curb walk,” that it was not undated. The date was just very faint, surprisingly so in contrast to the very deep impression of the name. I made a point to walk past it again today during the late-afternoon sun that does such a good job bringing out previously illegible marks and it was very clearly dated “6-11”, June 1911.
I am led to wonder whether all the “undated” Minnis & Ewer stamps I have seen around town were originally dated and I either overlooked the date for being so much fainter than the name, or else it has just worn off for the same reason. I will have to revisit some of them and see what I can see.
Meanwhile, I was wrong to say this was the only “curb walk” on the street. There is another one almost but not quite across the street from it. I will cover that one in a future update.
This is a first for the blog, but one that I have been planning on dropping in eventually. This neat and clear Minnis & Ewer stamp looks like it could have been left there last week, but it could very well be over 100 years old, based on the age of the only dated Minnis & Ewer stamp I have found (1911). That in itself makes it interesting, but the real reason I am posting it is because it represents something I find curious and don’t yet understand, the existence of bits of pavement leading from the sidewalk to the curb. This one is on the 200 block of Regent Street, between Michigan and Kalamazoo, on the east side of the street.
I grew up calling the strip of lawn between the sidewalk and the curb “the extension” as that was what my parents called it. I still use it, but have come to realize no one else around me does. Google has let me know that this is because it is not just specific to Michigan but pretty well localized to Ann Arbor, where I grew up. It appears in the city code of a few towns in Michigan but only Ann Arborites actually seem to use it in conversation.
I don’t know what to call these bits of sidewalk that appear on extensions erratically around my neighborhood. I have used the keyword “curb walk” just so I can find this entry again later, but that’s something I just made up as a placeholder until I come up with something better.
I originally thought, when I saw a bit of pavement like this, that the owner must have had it installed so they had somewhere to set out their trash bin for collection without messing up the grass. On consideration this does not seem to entirely explain it, both because of how old this one likely is (though perhaps contemporary to the old house it’s in front of) and because on some streets they appear at regular intervals as though they were considered a functional part of the sidewalk when it was constructed. This is not one of those places and I believe this is the only one on the block. I rather wish I had one, especially if it had a cool old stamp like this. I would set a planter on it (but not on the stamp).
Update 10/11/20: Joseph has pointed out that there is a date on this one. I revisited it with better light and was able to see that it is dated “6-11” – June 1911.
