Posted on by bunnyhugger

N. Clemens Ave., Bay(?), 1996

I am very inclined to believe that this stamp – on the west side of North Clemens Avenue between Jerome and Vine – is from the same contractor responsible for one of the blog’s early mysteries, the odd string of letters and numbers I first found on Kalamazoo Street and then later encountered versions of in a few different places. The first one looks a bit like “DAY02” but with no spacing and odd-looking characters I wasn’t sure it was a name and date or just a code of some kind. If this is the same contractor, then this is proof that is a name and date.

The case is still not settled. The first one I found had a pretty unambiguous D as the first letter. But then a later one, which otherwise bears a strong similarity to the first, is definitely a B (“BAY03”). A third one looks like it is readable either as a D or a B.

Looking north on North Clemens.

And what about this one? The style is very different from those odd mystery stamps, but the “D/BAY” and two-digit date makes it hard to resist making a connection between them. The (regrettably faint) first letter first appeared to me as a D, but on closer inspection, looks to be a B after all, and that’s what I will go with. I believe there is another one like this on Fairview, but it’s as faint or fainter. I will have to get a look at both of them at a few different times of day and see if my appraisal changes.

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E. Michigan Ave., Unknown

When I started this sidewalk project I don’t think I realized how much time I would end up sinking into researching local business history. Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but I also need to tone it down a little. I’ve developed a particular fascination with the stretch of East Michigan Avenue I’ve begun thinking of as “Eastmost.” From what I can tell, it used to be the car sales district. Tonight’s stamp comes from the north side of East Michigan between Kipling and Lasalle Court.

It’s another mystery stamp in the vein of this mystery stamp, but the two of them help fill in the gaps with each other. The faint area on this one matches the Y in the earlier one, and the clear A in this one matches the faint area of the other. Since the other ends in 02 and this one in 03 it’s tempting to treat that as a date. But who or what is “DAY”? And why the odd spacing (or lack thereof)?

This is close to the corner of Kipling, in front of the Avis/Budget car rental agency. The office building was built in the 1990s. The garage on the property (they don’t share a street address, but are part of the same lot according to city records) dates from 1940. I don’t know who the original occupant was, but by in the 1950s it was Hodgson & Osborn Used Cars, as pictured in this 1958 photo filed in the Capital Area District Library’s local history collection. “Note arborist in tree in center of photo,” directs the caption. It appears that the arborist is in the act of taking the tree down. They evidently didn’t replace it, as there is no street tree there now.

Sometime after Hodgson & Osborn, certainly by the 1970s, it became Spartan Auto Sales. In 1981 the address starts showing up in newspaper ads still attached to Spartan Auto Sales but also as the address for Ugly Duckling Rent-a-Car and Ugly Duckling Car Lot. I’m not sure how it was both Spartan and Ugly Duckling at the same time, but that seems to be the case.

Sometime in the late 1980s it became Thrifty and then eventually Budget/Avis. Thus it went through the same progression from a car lot, through a less respectable car lot, to a car rental agency, as the current Enterprise location.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

E. Kalamazoo St., Unknown

Pardon the shadows on this one; it was taken during a nighttime walk, under a streetlight. It’s on the south side of Kalamazoo between Magnolia and Hayford.

I don’t know what to make of this. There are at least two of them, both similarly illegible, on this block. D(something)Y02? Not sure about that second character; is it a 4? The spacing looks off. I welcome any suggestions about what this means.

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Prospect St., DPW, Oct. 1918

Well, now, look what I found on the south side of Prospect between Magnolia and Fairview – close to the corner of Prospect and Magnolia. Remember this 1918 Department of Public Works stamp from N. Fairview? I was pretty sure it said 1918, anyway, though it was very worn. I feel even more confident in that judgment now, since I have found another 1918 DPW stamp.

This one is much clearer, but the previous one gets to retain its place as the oldest I’ve found so far, since it was dated August. Still, finding another 1918 mark so soon does give me hope that I have older ones yet to find. It’s interesting that they marked not just the month but even the day. Almost all the other dated stamps I have found have only the year.

Comparing this one with the August slab yields another interesting observation. This one has month/date/year, in that order. The other had year/month/[something illegible]. I also notice the crookedness of the year. I am led to the conclusion that the month and year stamps were separate from the name stamp, and that the two workers chose to stamp them in different orders. (I am not sure if the date is a stamp or hand written; it looks disproportionately large.)

This slab is in much better condition than the Fairview one, not cracked or unduly worn. I would expect it to last decades yet to come.