I had to check my records several times before satisfying myself that I hadn’t done this one before. It’s in a part of town I walk very frequently and it’s two things I always stop and photograph: a 1920s stamp and a diagonal one. Except for a crack, it’s in really nice shape, too. Somehow, I have missed it before now. It’s on the east side of South Fairview Avenue between Michigan and Prospect.
The house it’s in front of was built in 1910, so it was relatively young when the stamp was place.
This one is on the north side of Prospect Street between Eighth and Pennsylvania. The stamp is a clear example of the “second style” of Department of Public Works stamps. The date is much harder to read and it took me a second trip in better light before I made out enough of it to tell at least the decade. It is definitely a 1920s stamp and I am fairly confident it is 1926.
Although it’s just about illegible, I am fairly sure this is a Lansing DPW stamp. I read the date as 1933, but 1938 is a possibility too. It’s on the west side of Allen Street between Michigan and Prospect.
This Department of Public Works stamp is on the north side of Hickory Street between Jones and Holmes. I’ll always collect a diagonal DPW stamp; they seem almost always to be from 1921. This one has a further quirk in that the year has been stamped upside-down at a rather haphazard angle.
I suspect this one is actually a pair to another diagonal one a couple of lots east on Hickory, close to the corner of Holmes.
This faded 1941 Department of Public Works stamp is on the east side of Leslie Street’s 400 block, between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth.
See, I told you Lansing doesn’t enforce the code about what you can plant on the parkway. No “day lily tickets” in this town!
This stamp is on the south side of Prospect Street between Jones and Bingham. It is a very worn Department of Public Works stamp and though the date is illegible in this photo, I think it is 1935, based on the times I have seen it in better light.
Did you know that Lansing has a Prospect Park? Neither did I, until last year when I started walking regularly. I was looking at a route-plotting site for interesting places to walk to from home, and saw a sliver of land labeled as “Prospect Park.” My brother used to live near the Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and a favorite carousel is there, so the name caught my attention.
It turns out that, online maps aside, it might not properly be called Prospect Park after all. It’s owned by the county Land Bank rather than being under the Parks Department, and the (rather temporary-looking) sign on the site calls it “1112 Prospect Playground.” To me, it will remain Prospect Park. It takes up a city lot, and so it is narrow and deep. The main features are at the front: an evergreen tree with a small garden around it, and a set of playground equipment. The back half is just grass until you get to a couple of small garden beds in the back corners.
Although I have a strange fondness for this little pretender, I have to tell you that it is built on a tragedy. The residents of the house that previously stood here – a young engaged couple – were killed in a double homicide, at home, in 2008. Their heirs did not, or could not, keep up with the taxes on the house and it ended up in the hands of Ingham County. It sat derelict in the Land Bank for a while until, in 2015, Sparrow partnered with the Land Bank to demolish the house and create the playground. Sparrow’s involvement in this is due to the fact that residents were unhappy when Sparrow bought Bingham School and razed it to build a parking structure, as I have written about before. They lost a place for neighborhood kids to play. Prospect Park is supposed to rectify that.
The side of the big tree facing away from the street has a cryptic memorial to the murder victims: a cross with two sets of initials. The house they lived in was built in 1890 and was staid but handsome, with oddly symmetrical front porches on either corner. A few signs of the former residence can still be seen: some old, twisted fencing at the back, a driveway apron, a bit of rope that has grown into a tree.
This one is on the south side of Bement Street between Jones and Holmes and it’s an old-timer, though it’s hard to be sure of the year. When I first saw it I thought it read 1914, which would have been the earliest Department of Public Works stamp I’d found. When I got back there to photograph it, it was in wetter conditions, and I think they made the date more legible and unfortunately revealed it to probably be 1918. It’s probably either that or 1916, but I favor 1918. Anyway, it’s quite an old one. Ones that include a month are, in my experience, always from 1924 or earlier.
The placement is a bit nontraditional. Usually the DPW stamps the month and date underneath the name, rather than side by side like this.
This one is on the apron of a driveway on the west side of North Fairview Avenue between Vine and Fernwood. It’s stamped diagonally on the south corner of the apron, facing the sidewalk so pedestrians can admire it. I am mildly curious what circumstances result in the city having to construct (or more likely reconstruct) someone’s driveway apron. I’m guessing it happens when they have to tear up for sewer work, for instance.
This “second style” Department of Public Works stamp is on the north side of East Saginaw Street between Maryland and Marshall (closer to Maryland), in front of Marshall Park. My husband and I walked to the park tonight because I heard that the city fireworks can be seen from there (pretty well, it turns out).
This “Type 2” DPW stamp is on the south side of Eureka Street just west of Pennsylvania. It’s in front of a really handsome 1906 Dutch Colonial house.
