foster – Capital City Sidewalks

Posted on August 12, 2023 by bunnyhugger

N. Foster Ave., Louis Guinette, 1928

I’m kicking off the fourth year of the blog in style, with a brand new stamp, and a beautiful one. Just look at that clear impression and the artistic vignette effect! I just stumbled across this yesterday on someone’s driveway on west side of North Foster Avenue between Michigan and Vine, which is a block I walk all the time.

Every time I decide that I must have found every unique stamp on the east side something like this happens.

Unfortunately I can’t find anything out about Louis Guinette. Searching for his name gets me no hits in the State Journal, and Find a Grave doesn’t even know of a grave anywhere in Michigan for someone named Louis Guinette.

Posted on July 23, 2023 by bunnyhugger

S. Foster Ave., E.E. Lockwood, 1937

I noticed this very worn stamp on a driveway apron in front of a house on the west side of South Foster Avenue between Michigan and Prospect. It’s fairly wordy, suggesting it may give a city as well as a name, although it may just say “cement contractors” or something.

I looked around to see if there is a matching one and there is, or at least I think so, on the sidewalk nearby. Unfortunately it’s no more legible.

I was getting ready to put this post through when I decided to take one more look at the name to see if I could make it out. It was bothering me how close I was to being able to read it. I started thinking I saw “Lookwood” but decided that didn’t really sound like a name. What about Lockwood? I thought that sounded more like a plausible name. A Google search for “Lockwood concrete lansing” turned up the October 19, 1934 issue of the East Lansing Press, courtesy of Central Michigan University’s Digital Michigan Newspapers collection. There on page six I found this:

220 M.A.C. Avenue is now part of a big commercial building with condos on the upper floors. It would have been located about where CVS is today. Although I was in town when that block was redeveloped, I can’t seem to shake loose a memory of what it looked like before or what was there.

Posted on January 25, 2023 by bunnyhugger

N. Foster Ave., B. Traverse, 1960

Here’s a B. Traverse stamp from right nearby the illegible one I showed you last time, on the west side of North Foster Avenue between Michigan and Vine. I felt like I had to take a picture of something legible that day, so this is what you get.

Posted on January 20, 2023 by bunnyhugger

N. Foster Ave., Illegible

I returned to an old-looking but illegible stamp I had previously done in 2021, hoping that the time of day or the wet pavement might have made it visible. Unfortunately, I still can’t make it out (except for “Lansing, Mich”), although fussing with the contrast a bit made it tantalizingly close.

The paired stamp a bit north is equally illegible, if not more so. These are on the west side of North Foster Avenue between Michigan and Vine.

Posted on September 17, 2022September 17, 2022 by bunnyhugger

S. Foster Ave., DPW, 1938

This is a typical “second style” DPW stamp from the west side of South Foster Avenue between Michigan and Prospect. I actually took the photo not primarily because of the stamp, but rather because it is another example of those odd geometric markings that I do not know the purpose of. It is similar to, though not as large as, the ones on Jerome Street. I hope I eventually figure out what the deal is with them.

Posted on March 29, 2022 by bunnyhugger

S. Foster Ave., Illegible, 1937

I habitually watch the sidewalk when I’m walking around the neighborhood so that I can notice sidewalk stamps, but now that I’ve mined the east side so thoroughly, I’ve started to branch out and also look at any front walks I pass. Today I noticed these two stamps on the west side of South Foster Avenue between Michigan and Prospect.

The front walk is the closest (southernmost) one in this photo. A smaller path, leading presumably to the back of the house, is visible near the center of the photo.

There are two walks leading up to this house, one being the main front walk to the porch, and the other being a smaller path leading around to the back of the house. I noticed the one on the smaller path first and thought the date was 1937, but wasn’t entirely sure, as it could also have been 1987.

This is the northern stamp, on the smaller walk.

Then I saw the stamp on the front walk, which is a much clearer 1937. I can’t be totally sure they are from the same contractor, since they do look a bit different, but that might just be due to uneven wear. It seems likely they were done at the same time. They don’t date to the construction of the house; that was back in 1910.

This is the front walk (southern) stamp.

They are tantalizingly close to legible, but unfortunately I can only pick out a few letters.

Posted on July 2, 2021July 2, 2021 by bunnyhugger

N. Foster Ave., Illegible

This is an intriguing mystery, on the west side of North Foster Avenue between Michigan and Vine. I have walked past this pair of stamps at different times of day, hoping I would find some combination of light and shadow that would make one of them legible, but I have given up. They are just too worn to give up their identity. The part I can make out, or at least I think I can, is the bottom arc: it appears to be “LANSING MICHIGAN.”

The style, typeface, and inclusion of the city and state are features characteristic of early stamps. Unfortunately, I can’t make out either the name or a date. The top arc is surely a name, and the depressed area in the center could well be a date, but there’s not enough left to have even a clue what it is. There are two stamps. The southern one has the somewhat readable bottom line, but the rest is hopeless. The northern stamp is deeper but no more readable, except that the first letter of the first line might be a K.

I’m sorry to say that this one is probably totally lost, except as a reminder of how old the sidewalks are and how many little mysteries are written on them.

Looking south on North Foster from the northern stamp.

Posted on June 11, 2021 by bunnyhugger

S. Foster Ave., Ed Brackins, 1951

Here is a stamp from the once-mysterious but now familiar Ed Brackins. It’s so worn that if it had been the first one I had seen I probably wouldn’t have been able to read it. It’s on the west side of South Foster Avenue between Michigan and Prospect.

Posted on February 25, 2021 by bunnyhugger

S. Foster Ave., illegible name, 1969

This stamp is in front of Foster Garden, a community garden, on the east side of South Foster Avenue, south of Marcus. The date is clear enough; the name is illegible. It seems to end with -PA. The letter before that might be I, or might be part of something worn away.

Whenever the county doesn’t know what to do with a property that ends up in the Land Bank due to tax foreclosure, it says “um… tear the house down and build a community garden!” As a result there are a truly ridiculous number of community gardens on the east side, especially in the Urbandale neighborhood, and places where the houses are sparse.

For a couple of years in the 2000s, I want to say ’07-’08, I had a community garden plot in the Foster Garden. I would ride my bike there to tend tomatoes, herbs, and lettuce. It was exciting at first, and I even made a little sign declaring it the “[Lastname] Farm,” but eventually I got tired of having to scoop diminishing water from the provided rain barrels. I decided it was easier to stay home and tend my own garden, even though I can’t grow vegetables in it. (My yard is shaded in almost every part by trees.)

My community garden plot was somewhere in there.

Posted on February 2, 2021 by bunnyhugger

S. Foster Ave., Cantu & Sons, 1987

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Look, at least it’s the less common variation, right? It’s on the east side of South Foster Avenue between Michigan and Prospect.

Right now this blog is less a sidewalk stamp blog and more a hall of fame of people who actually keep their sidewalks clear. Well, maybe the groundhog won’t see her shadow tomorrow.