I might have walked past this one without taking notice a hundred times. It’s on the slab right in front of the IQ Fit building on the south side of East Michigan Avenue, between Francis and Mifflin. The concrete is in especially bad shape here, patched repeatedly with asphalt, so it is lucky that this stamp survives. It is undated, but could date to the construction of the adjacent building in 1959.
I have actually encountered this stamp just one other time, on the front walk of a house on South Pennsylvania, though only the word Basile was legible. Looking back at that one, the placement does suggest another word was probably worn away in front, so it probably also read Bond Basile. Unfortunately, I know nothing of the contractor, despite searching.
The stamp is on the nearest block that touches the vertical siding, facing the road.
This stamp is on the south side of Lasalle Gardens (according to the city, “Gardens” is the suffix, like “Street,” rather than part of the name proper) between Kipling and Midvale. This neighborhood on the east edge of Lansing is the Midtown subdivision, developed in the 1950s, around the same time as the nearby Frandor shopping center. It is full of neat little 1950s homes and so reminds me of the street I grew up on. The house this is in front of was built in 1955, the same year as the stamp, and so most likely the sidewalk was installed by the builders.
So who was J.A. Hicks? Well, one clue is that there was until recently a J.A. Hicks Building in East Lansing. It was a row of brick storefronts downtown, and so of course it was torn down to built a mini-Target and a big pile of lofts. Yet aside from references to the building, I could not turn up anything about J.A. Hicks, except for a few classified ads from someone by that name selling non-sidewalk-related items in the 1910s. So I tried one of my usual strategies, checking Find a Grave to see if I could determine a full name. There I found a John A. Hicks, born in 1872 and buried in the Mount Hope Cemetery in Lansing. That would make him old enough to be the J.A. Hicks of the classified ads. He was also in the right line of work: Polk’s Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory of 1921 has an entry for John A. Hicks that attaches him to a firm called the Hicks-Nichols Co., line of business given as “real est.”
A more or less easterly view on Lasalle Gardens.
But wait: there’s a problem. John A. Hicks died in 1937. Frustratingly, I have not been able to find his obituary, which would answer the question I am left with: did he have a son with the same name or initials? There was certainly some John Hicks around East Lansing in the 1950s, but he seems to have been a merchant. On December 2, 1953, the [Lansing] State Journal reported on a “new innovation in the field of merchandising In East Lansing these days,” which was “the dressing up of the back doors to shops along the city’s main street to attract customers from the city’s new municipal parking lots.” It goes on to say that “John Hicks opened up the back door of his shop when the first municipal lot was completed several years ago.” The January 24, 1956, State Journal article refers to “John Hicks, retiring president of the city’s Merchants Association.”
I tried the Capital Area District Library’s local history collection index, but there wasn’t a single entry for the keyword “Hicks” – this despite the fact that John A. Hicks’s death was considered notable enough to rate an entry in the State Journal‘s article “Chronological List of Important Events in Lansing During Past Year” on New Year’s Day 1938. Under the subheading “Important Deaths of Year” is “Nov. 10 – John A. Hicks, East Lansing business man, succumbed.”
As a followup to yesterday’s entry, I decided to head around the corner past Dagwood’s and walk the blocks of South Howard Street. I knew that the sidewalk was incomprehensibly intermittent there, and thought it would be interesting to capture a stamp from this strange liminal zone.
Disappointingly, I didn’t find a single stamp until I just about got to the southwest corner of Michigan and Howard. The stamp is just south of the corner. So here you go: the only sidewalk stamp on South Howard is this S & N Contractors stamp from 2000.
The remarkable scarcity of stamps led me to wonder if Lansing Township lacks a sidewalk marking requirement. It would be in keeping with its slapdash approach to sidewalks. It turns out, however, that they do have a sidewalk marking requirement:
All concrete walks and approaches shall have the name of the contractor constructing the walk, together with the year same is constructed, stamped in the surface of the walk near each end thereof, and at least once in the surface of each approach.
I saw one short section of new-looking sidewalk on Howard that should therefore be in the Hall of Shame.
Facing northeast into the intersection of Michigan and Howard. The stamp is on the nearest sidewalk.
The property adjacent to this stamp is currently just a big, empty, somewhat overgrown parking lot. It’s owned by the bus company Indian Trails and they use it to park the Michigan Flyer airport bus, which seems like an underutilization of the space. Prior to becoming bus parking, it was a car lot, the name of which I can’t remember if I ever knew. Going further back, I see Lansing State Journal advertisements for the Lansing Overhead Door Company at that address. It was there at least as early as 1935 and as late as 1978. The first mention I can find of a new address for Overhead Door is in 1981, by which time they had moved to East M-78, and there they remain today.
This stamp is on the west side of Mifflin Avenue between Michigan and Prospect. It could only be on the west side; the east side of Mifflin Avenue has no sidewalk, even though there are residences on both sides. There is (I believe) a clear explanation for this: the border between the city of Lansing and Lansing Township runs down the center of the street. I have observed that Lansing typically installs a sidewalk on any block that has residences. Lansing Township is largely uninterested in sidewalks.
Mifflin Avenue doesn’t serve as the shining example of Lansing sidewalk superiority that this would suggest. The sidewalk on Mifflin is awful, some of the worst I’ve found on the east side. Many slabs have subsided far enough to be partially or fully covered in a layer of mud and weeds. Many are crumbled. Walking from Kalamazoo to Michigan, I noticed that all the stamps were Cantu 1987 marks like this one. Notably, that suggests little or no sidewalk work has happened on this block since 1987. It shows.
Looking north on Mifflin Avenue. This is actually the best stretch of sidewalk on the block. I should have faced the other way.
This stamp is on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Charles and Detroit, just outside the city limits of Lansing in Lansing Township. It’s in front of the building on the corner of Detroit Street that now houses the People’s Kitchen restaurant. The building was built in 1958 and for most of its existence it housed various offices. Prior to the building’s construction, the site was (of course) a Bud Kouts used car lot and before that it was Bill Otto Buick.
In 2017, a food truck called Street Kitchen moved in, which was started by a former co-owner of the (in)famous Old Town breakfast spot The Golden Harvest. In 2019 Street Kitchen remade itself as the People’s Kitchen, a full-fledged restaurant.
Facing the People’s Kitchen’s entrance. The stamp is facing away from the viewer, underneath (and facing) an arc-shaped Able Concrete stamp.
Hanneman is most likely Carl Hanneman, who started a concrete business in 1953 and then sold it to Mark A. Fineis in 1988. The business is still in existence today as Hanneman & Fineis. I wrote a little bit about them in a previous entry. This allows me to date the stamp between 1953 and 1988, which I admit is not narrowing it down much. I wonder if it was connected to the office building’s construction.
Yesterday’s O.E. Porter entry reminded me that I had a stamp on my “to do” list – the ones I jot down to return to later – noted as “E. Porter.” I wondered if I had missed a leading O, or if this was a name variation or even a different company. I walked to the west side of Kipling Boulevard, between Michigan and Lasalle, to check it out.
This one is on a house’s front walk. Upon arriving I could see that it was certainly the same contractor and that the lack of the leading “O” is almost certainly just due to it being swallowed up into a pockmark in the concrete. The other one was undated; this one has a date, but it’s worn into illegibility. There really is no guessing a decade. So, sadly, I didn’t learn anything more about O.E. Porter from this visit.
A closer look to try to make out the date. It’s no good; it seems to end in an 0 but that isn’t much help. Why is it always the most important digit that seems to wear out first?
It’s on the font walk of this charming English-cottage-style house.
This stamp is on the west side of Kipling Boulevard, alongside Capital Imaging (which is located on East Michigan Avenue at Kipling). I have previously catalogued a George Hagamier stamp on the same stretch of sidewalk and written a little about the Capital Imaging building in the process.
The southern sidewalk stamp.
Stamp on the driveway.
This is the most recent example I have seen of the “1980s” style DPW stamp, and also therefore the latest use of the “DPW” name. The next style used appears to be the simple “O & M” stamps. Most of those are undated but I have found a few marked as 2005.
There are three stamps, one on either end of a run of sidewalk and one on the driveway in between.
The northern stamp. Looks like they had a false start. I recognize that kind of misprint from my rubber stamping hobbies.
The back corner of Capital Imaging. The southern stamp is by the side door, the northern one is in the foreground here, and the other one is in the middle of the driveway apron.
I walked out to the neighborhood I call Eastmost in order to collect a stamp I’d noted on some previous outing. I was foiled in this plan by a layer of snow covering the area where I believed the stamp to be. I gave up and started walking back. It was snowing, and even the relatively clear areas were being steadily covered. I decided I had better stop at the first sidewalk I came to that had a light coating and get to work finding something there.
I love how it looks when the snow fills in the stamp.
So that’s what I did. This Isabella Corp. stamp is in front of a pawn shop (it just calls itself “SECOND HAND STORE” on the awning, though the Internet tells me it’s properly H & M Discount Second Hand Store) on the north side of East Michigan Avenue between Francis and Foster. Before the building was H & M, it was another, very similar-looking pawn shop. It was built in 1952 and its first occupant seems to have been Associates Discount Corp. I went to find out more about them and Googling their name got me pages of caselaw references – usually them suing someone but occasionally someone suing them. I learned that they were an auto finance company, so apparently the building has stayed in the loan business.
I walked along this stretch of Michigan dragging a boot at the top and bottom of each sidewalk slab until I uncovered something. I wonder what the next person to walk by made of it.
Prior to becoming Associates Discount Corp., the address belonged to Jack Royeton Inc., a Kaiser-Frazer car dealer. Once upon a time, Eastmost was the dealership district. It’s amazing to think what it that must have been like.
This 1941 Department of Public Works stamp is decades older than the building that currently occupies the address. It’s on the south side of East Michigan Avenue, just west of the intersection of Francis and Michigan. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to readily locate information about what was at that address prior to the current building’s construction in 1970. Given what I’ve come to learn about Eastmost, it was probably a car lot. In decades past, it seems that this was the car dealer district.
I have a sentimental attachment to this building because it used to be Fish & Chips, a former Arthur Treacher’s that decided to keep going after the chain pulled out. It still had the old IN and OUT signs, the big lantern, and some of the menu boards. Just the name “Arthur Treacher’s” had been removed from the signage. I loved their fries and hush puppies.
Looking west on Michigan Avenue. The stamp is at the lower center.
Fish & Chips finally closed up shop in 2018, lasting about ten years past the point when I kept thinking it would surely close anytime now (but then thought maybe it never would). For a short while afterward it was Lee Lee’s Coney Island, and now is Amanecer Mexicano. I haven’t tried it, though I hear it is good. I just can’t get past wishing it was still what it used to be, and missing those hush puppies every time I walk by.
Looking southeast. This is the opposite end of the building from the stamp.
Today’s stamp is in front of the same address as yesterday’s – the Budget/Avis lot on the north side of East Michigan Avenue between Kipling and Lasalle Court. It’s just east of Kipling, close to the crosswalk.
The E. T. MacKenzie Company was established in 1982 in Grand Ledge and still has its headquarters there, although it now also has a few branch offices in Michigan and one in Florida. They offer construction, demolition, and remediation services according to their Web site, so I guess you could say they’re a Mack of all trades.
Notice the style of the stamp. I first encountered it as the new style O & M stamp, and have subsequently observed it in use by several contractors. Evidently some third party sells them using a standard template. They look neat enough, but I would sacrifice orderly for unique.
