Posted on by bunnyhugger

Kipling Blvd., George Hagamier, illegible date

I was surprised and delighted to find this faint George Hagamier mark on the west side of Kipling Boulevard, alongside Capital Imaging, the commercial printer on the corner of Michigan and Kipling. I considered leaving it until I could come to it in better light, but then I remembered that sometimes streetlights make something more visible, so there would be no guarantee it would look better in daylight. The fact that I have walked this block several times without noticing it suggests that the light must have been lucky, so I decided to grab it now.

I kicked ice away to find a date and was disappointed to see that it was totally illegible. I could just make out the impression of where it would have been, but there is no hope of reading it. It is rare to find especially old stamps on or near Michigan Avenue. They are mostly 1980s through the present. I suppose it’s because the the sidewalks here are replaced a lot more often. The only other George Hagamier stamps I have found so far are from 1929 and 1930. The Capital Imaging building was built in 1926, so perhaps the stamp is from then.

Looking north on Kipling Avenue. The stamp is hard to see here but it is right at the bottom of the picture. Capital Imaging is on the left.

I tried to find out who the original occupant of the building was, and failed. From 1946 until 1998 it was Alexanian’s, a rug dealer. (Old ads state that they have “Oriental and domestic rugs” for sale.) When Alexanian’s moved out, it then became Capital Imaging. But I don’t know who was there from 1929 until 1946.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

Jerome St., George Hagamier, 1930

I have always paid attention to sidewalk stamps, but now that I’m actively looking for them for this blog, I keep seeing ones I thought would be harder to find. For instance, I had thought finding one from the 1930s would be difficult as I could not recall ever seeing one. On my walk today I realized there was a 1930 stamp right out in front of 1704 Jerome, the house I previously wrote about. This is on the south side of Jerome between Marshall and Horton (near the corner of Marshall). I stopped to look at it first because I saw that it was another George Hagamier stamp like the one I noted on the Marshall side of the property. Then I realized that instead of another 1929 stamp as I expected, it was from 1930.

Although 1704 Jerome was built in 1929 according to the city’s property records, this leads me to wonder if it was still being worked on into 1930 (likely by George Hagamier, who was a building contractor).

This stamp is much more worn and difficult to read than the quite neat and clear stamp on the Marshall side of the property, near the house’s gigantic garage. I don’t know how to account for that. Jerome doesn’t seem likely to receive any more foot traffic than Marshall, but maybe things were different in decades past.

The funny thing is that my walk later took me past a Lansing DPW stamp on Clemens that, if I’m reading it correctly, also read 1930.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

Marshall St., George Hagamier, 1929

Today’s stamp is on Marshall St. between Michigan and Jerome. Jerome is a curious street. It crosses north-south streets full of modest homes on Lansing’s east side, lots of two-storey dwellings hovering around 1200 or so square feet, built in the 1890s to 1920s. Yet Jerome St. itself is peppered with grander homes, a few even approaching mansionhood. This results in the incongruity of a stately old pile standing right next to an honest little house. Such is the case at Jerome and Marshall.

I have long admired this house, 1704 Jerome St. I think of it as Tudor Revival and have always thought it looked quite a bit like the English Inn, the 1927 Tudor style mansion built as the country home of a GM executive which happens to be where I had my wedding. The City Pulse profiled 1704 Jerome as part of its Eye Candy of the Week feature and called it Georgian style. I have a very rudimentary grasp of architectural styles but I still think it looks like a Tudor. The first time I saw it while driving around my neighborhood I was flummoxed: what is this doing here? Moreover, I wondered to myself, how did they manage to build that obviously modern three-car garage and yet blend it so well into the existing architecture? Even the bricks match perfectly. It can’t be original, because no one would have had a three-car garage in the 1920s when that was probably built.

Since then I have learned to use the city’s online property search to satisfy my curiosity about such things. From it I have learned that the house, yes, was built in 1929. And the garage, according to city… was also built in 1929. How strange.

Today’s stamp is near that garage, on the Marshall St. side of the property. George Hagamier was a contractor who did a lot of building in Lansing, including being hired to put an addition on the Hotel Kerns (which later burned down). I can find a reference to him being a contractor as early as 1906, when he was mixed up with some sort of fiasco involving a business called the National Supply Company. Yet, according to an article on the English Inn in the City Pulse, George Hagamier was the contractor for an addition that was put on the English Inn in the 1950s. Could it possibly be the same person? The 1940 census lists a George Hagamier of Lansing as being 69 years old. This would imply that Mr. Hagamier was still working as a contractor into his 80s, unless it is actually a father and son.

In any case, my guess is that George Hagamier was involved in building 1704 Jerome. Perhaps he was the person you called when you wanted to build a big stack of Tudor (or Georgian) bricks.

I had expected this one to be the oldest one I saw for at least a little while, but my husband has already located several 1924 pavements and when my walk takes me in the right direction you’ll be seeing them here.