Posted on by bunnyhugger

Hall of Shame: new sidewalk behind Eastern HS

This stretch of sidewalk is new, but unstamped and undated, which is why it has been filed under “Hall of Shame.” The fact that it is not adjoining a public street probably exempts it from the city’s code on sidewalk marking, but I wanted to catalogue it for the historical value of recording when it was created.

The south end of the new sidewalk.

It branches off from the previously-existing sidewalk behind Eastern High School and the Armory, heading to the east along the edge of the Eastern grounds, eventually meeting up with Saginaw. It passes by a small sidewalk that cuts over to North Clemens Avenue at Fernwood Street. That sidewalk has been torn out (don’t worry, it had no stamps on it; I had checked in the past). My understanding is that it will be reconstructed to serve as part of the East Side Connector, a bicycle route between the east side to downtown.

The north end of the new path. The dirt area is where the old sidewalk from Clemens was removed (it heads left/east from here, through the fence) and I am standing on the asphalt path that continues north.

The sidewalk stops at the point where the link to Clemens was (and will be) and past that the path becomes asphalt. I don’t know, but I am guessing that this is the point when it becomes part of the East Side Connector.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

Marshall St., Eastlund Concrete, 2006

This stamp is actually on the grounds of Eastern High School, on a curb cut in front of the school. There are lots of similar ones on the walks around the school as well as on the public sidewalks on Marshall Street and East Saginaw Street. They must date to when the school was built.

The building was constructed to house Pattengill Middle School, which became a “biotechnical” magnet school called Pattengill Academy when it moved there in 2007. It had previously been located on Jerome Street next to Eastern High School, but like so much of that neighborhood it ended up in the hands of Sparrow and was demolished to build a parking lot. Its original name when it opened in 1921 was East Junior High, but the following year it was renamed Pattengill Junior High.

Approaching Eastern High School from the south, via the sidewalk that extends from the dead end of Horton. (The stamp isn’t visible here. I just liked the pretty sky.)

Pattengill closed in 2013. Meanwhile, the original (1928) Eastern High School got sold to (guess who?) Sparrow, so in 2019, Eastern High School was moved into the former Pattengill building.