This very worn Department of Public Works stamp is on the front walk of a house on the north side of Larned Street between Holmes and Jones. The last digit is a little hard to read but I think it’s 1926. Another DPW stamp across the street, similarly hard to read, I had previously decided was probably 1926, and stamps tend to come in clusters like that. The stamp is what I call the “first style” of DPW stamps, which were used from the teens through the forties.
What’s curious about this one is that it’s on a house’s front walk, not a public sidewalk. I have seen DPW stamps on driveway aprons before (presumably replaced during road or utility work) but this is the only one I have seen on a front walk. I am assuming it must have been damaged by utility work for the city to have gotten involved.
This very worn Lansing DPW stamp (what I call the “second style” of DPW stamps) is on the west side of South Magnolia Avenue near the southern dead end. It’s in front of the second to last house on the west side, a house which is about seven years older than the stamp.
I’ve noticed a fair number of 1930-dated DPW stamps in the Urbandale neighborhood, so there must have been a big sidewalk replacement project around then. I figure I should capture interesting stamps on these blocks while I can, because they’ve recently started removing sidewalks from the areas near the dead ends.
There are plenty of 1944 DPW stamps on Horton Street, but this one, on the east side of the street between Michigan and Jerome, is unusually placed. It’s on the sidewalk across the house’s driveway, and it faces sideways, toward the house, as though it were showing off to the homeowner.
This is in front of the same house as the nearly-gone hall of shame sidewalk from the last entry.
I had thought I’d catalogued every 1920s stamp on the east side of Lansing, but I was wrong. I stumbled across this 1925 Lansing DPW stamp on the south side of Fernwood Avenue between Magnolia and Hayford.
Back in the Capital City now, on the west side of Horton Avenue between Jerome and the dead end, I found this worn, old Department of Public Works stamp. I’ve actually passed it many times before, but the waning light (oh, that early sunset, this time of year!) was raking everything at such a perfect angle that I thought I might be able to make out the illegible date this time.
Now that I have seen it in good light, I think the date marking there is actually a month, May, similar to this stamp nearby which is also labeled “May” with no apparent year. Strange.
It was a beautiful evening for looking at sidewalk markings, anyway. Look at this light.
My eyes are always drawn to an old Department of Public Works stamp, no matter what kind of shape it’s in. This one is on the east side of North Fairview Avenue between Saginaw and Grand River. I’m fairly sure it is 1920s, but can’t read the last digit. My gut says 1925, but I’m by no means confident about that.
The stamp may be nothing too special, but it does represent a breakthrough: I finally made myself walk across the pedestrian bridge over Saginaw. Many years ago when I was in grad school I ended up in this neighborhood for reasons I can’t recall or guess at. What I do remember is that I tried to cross on the pedestrian overpass and though I was able to walk to the top, my legs went weak and locked up and would not let me cross. I’m afraid of heights, and it feels flimsy, but mostly it’s the traffic roaring underneath that terrifies me. It doesn’t help that when I was buying my house, the real estate agent drove us underneath one of them and commented about how there was an accident when a truck hit one and knocked it down while some children were on it. (I thought I remembered him saying someone was killed, but either I misremembered or he did. Six children were injured, however.) I ended up descending the steps again in defeat and walking to a traffic light to cross. This time, though, I walked across it at last, and did it again on the way back. I was given some practice by having to walk across a larger one over a busier road in Mexico City a few years ago.
Looking south on Fairview. The stamp is on the block in front of the street tree, but facing the other way.
Since it was dark and the stamp is so worn, you’ll have to take my word for it that this is a Lansing DPW stamp. It’s definitely from the 1940s, the question is what the last digit is. I shone a raking light over it and thought it was 1949. If so, that’s the latest DPW stamp I have found. All the 1950s stamps I have found read “Lansing DPS” instead.
It’s on the east side of Lathrop Street between Prospect and Kalamazoo, and I admit I partly wanted an excuse to show that the neighborhood has started to put its Halloween flair on, like the house this stamp is in front of.
I am reasonably confident that this is a Lansing DPW stamp based on the shape, but I really can’t guess the date except that it will be 1920s through 1940s. It’s alongside a business on the southeast corner of East Michigan Avenue and Shepard Street, on the Shepard side of the property. I have done a different stamp on this property before, but I returned to it in order to show off something I’ve stumbled across: real estate listings for properties on East Michigan Avenue.
I’ve looked at the Belon real estate agency cards that CADL has in their collection before, but hadn’t thought to look through the ones for the business corridor. It turns out to be a wonderful peek into what Michigan Avenue looked like in from the 1950s through early ’70s. From it I learned that this shop, which was Discount One Hour Signs for a long time and recently had Campus Scooter move in, was at one time Caruso’s Candy Kitchen. The real estate card, dated 1971, claims the building dates to 1967, but the city’s records indicate that the main building on the corner was built in 1912, and the smaller building to the east was added to it in 1967. The card shows Mr. and Mrs. Peter Caruso trying to sell the business for the reason of retirement. It appears that their listings in August and October 1971 were both unsuccessful. I don’t know what happened after that, but Caruso’s Candy Kitchen still existed as a business for decades afterward. I knew of them due to their presence in the Meridian Mall, near the bookstore where I used to work. They had a soda and ice cream counter as well as selling candy there. After they left, that storefront never got a tenant again, at least not for more than a short stint. Their last outpost was the ill-fated Lansing City Market. They closed in August 2013. There is a Caruso’s Candy and Soda Shop in Dowagiac that is still open, and they seem to have some connection, because in a Facebook page announcing the closing of the Lansing Caruso’s, someone asks about the Dowagiac store and the reply is “it’s just the one in Lansing that’s closing. The store in Dowagiac is still doing very well.”
The stamp location.
The only business I can figure out prior to Caruso’s as this location was Deerfield Furs. I see an advertisement for it in the July 19, 1948, [Lansing] State Journal, and then this one on March 11, 1949:
ANNOUNCING DEERFIELD FURS UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP
Expert Furriers and Designers
FACTORY ON PREMISES
WILL OPEN APRIL 1st WITH A FULL LINE OF SPRING FURS
This one is on the west side of Parker Street just south of the corner of East Malcolm X (or is it Main Street?). It’s right around the corner from the famous Schneeberger & Koort stamp, as seen in my photo below.
This is the sidewalk block at the southeast corner of Parker Street and East Malcolm X Street. I’ll call it Parker since the house at this property faces Parker.
It’s of interest for two reasons. First, I have seen two stamps on one block before, but never three (driveways excepted). I think they were trying to make it clear which park of the sidewalk they were marking out, fearing the intersection would make it ambiguous whether they had paved Parker or Main (as it was then called). And speaking of Main, here is the other reason this spot is interesting. Look at the street sign that is at this corner.
Main St. was renamed Malcolm X St. years ago… except, apparently, the 1200 block.
Did they forget to change the sign when Main changed its name to Malcolm X in 2010? Or did this little stub end of the street somehow escape the official name change? I’ve been to this spot before when cataloguing the famous Schneeberger & Koort stamp, the one that brought the wonder of the Bum Walks Controversy into my life, but I did not notice the sign at the time.
