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Hall of Shame: Unstamped “Bum Walk” on Jerome

I finally got a chance to walk up to Jerome and Horton to see the bum walk people have been complaining about on the Eastside Facebook group. Several curb cuts along Jerome on Horton and nearby streets have been reconstructed recently, and it does not appear that any of them were stamped by the contractor so that they could take credit (or possibly, in this case, discredit) for their work.

The northwest corner of Jerome and Horton.

I’m not a sidewalk expert and it’s possible there is nothing wrong with these. The complaint that’s being made is that the approaches are too low, resulting in water pooling around them during heavy rain. To my eyes it did appear that they were lower than the drain at this corner, but again, I can’t be sure. Marking this as a Hall of Shame entry is more to do with the failure to mark them as city code requires.

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Bum Walks, 2023 Edition

The scheduled sidewalk stamp for today has been pre-empted so that I can bring you this breaking news: people in the Eastside Neighborhood Organization Facebook group are getting angry about sidewalk construction. It’s true! Wordy tilts about bum walks are not the exclusive province of the 1910s. It’s great watching people get livid about (allegedly) badly-made sidewalks.

I considered coming into the fray to explain that this is why they’re supposed to stamp their names on it, but ultimately thought better of it.

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Horton Ave., Department of Public Works, undated

This battle-scarred stamp is on the east side of Horton Street north of Jerome. It’s a shame there is no visible date, since it looks like an old timer.

It’s not likely that this was originally undated, because the DPW back then was very good about dating all their sidewalks. More likely the date has been completely worn away. It’s just a little surprising that there isn’t any impression to suggest where it had been.

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Horton Ave., Illegible (Cantu & Sons?)

Are you tired of extremely faint stamps from Horton Avenue yet? Well, life is hard. This is a very nearly invisible stamp that I noticed only because I have started actively looking at “curb walks” for stamps. (I don’t know what I am supposed to call them, but “curb walk” is my name for little bits of sidewalk that run across someone’s extension to the curb, and “extension” is my name for what Lansing’s municipal code calls a “parkway”). This one is on the east side of Horton Avenue (yes Avenue, I keep forgetting that it’s an Avenue and not a Street, Google Maps notwithstanding) between Michigan and Jerome.

Yeah, you might have to take my word for it that there’s a stamp here.

I believe it may be a Cantu & Sons stamp, specifically the “Cantu & Sons Cement Cont” variety, because I can make out part of the word “cement” in the lower row of the stamp, and an N above it in the upper row. The date is a lost cause.

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Horton St., C. Wilkinson, 1965(?)

Here’s another extremely worn stamp from the northernmost block of Horton Street, on the west side of the street. This one I recognized more readily, as a C. Wilkinson stamp. The date is 1960s and I think it’s 1965, though I’m not entirely confident of the last digit.

I wonder why so many stamps on Horton are so worn compared with the same vintage stamps on other blocks? It does seem like there are more of these very faint ones around there.

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Horton St., T.A. Forsberg, 1960s

This stamp is near the north end of Horton, on the east side of the street. I intended to present it as illegible, but when I got home and looked at the photograph I suddenly realized I could recognize it after all. Sometimes the camera sees something that I can’t see with my eyes. It’s definitely a T.A. Forsberg stamp. I’m not sure of the last digit of the date, which otherwise appears to be 1960s.

This is about as worn as a stamp can get and still be readable at all. It’s almost gone, lost to history.

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Horton St., DPW, 1944

There are plenty of 1944 DPW stamps on Horton Street, but this one, on the east side of the street between Michigan and Jerome, is unusually placed. It’s on the sidewalk across the house’s driveway, and it faces sideways, toward the house, as though it were showing off to the homeowner.

This is in front of the same house as the nearly-gone hall of shame sidewalk from the last entry.

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Hall of shame: Horton St. mostly gone sidewalk

Today’s is the result of another to-do list failure. I had this in my notes: “East side near end of Horton – 1924? DPW (may need to be wet).” Being wet sometimes makes faded marks a little more legible. Yesterday the weather got significantly above freezing for the first time in a long time, so I thought it might be my chance. I walked up there and found that the sidewalk was wet, all right. In fact, the stretch of sidewalk near the end of Horton was under an inch of water. There would be no finding the stamp under that.

Walking back from there on Horton Street, I saw what looked like a grassy square with no sidewalk at all, which didn’t make sense. I stopped to look and realized it did have the remnants of a sidewalk, but it’s more than half gone. It has to have taken some time to let it get this bad. I am (a little) surprised the city will let sidewalks get this bad before requiring them to be replaced. This one gets entered into the Hall of Shame as maybe the worst sidewalk block on the east side. It’s on the east side of Horton between Michigan and Jerome.

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Horton Ave., DPW, undated (?)

Back in the Capital City now, on the west side of Horton Avenue between Jerome and the dead end, I found this worn, old Department of Public Works stamp. I’ve actually passed it many times before, but the waning light (oh, that early sunset, this time of year!) was raking everything at such a perfect angle that I thought I might be able to make out the illegible date this time.

Now that I have seen it in good light, I think the date marking there is actually a month, May, similar to this stamp nearby which is also labeled “May” with no apparent year. Strange.

It was a beautiful evening for looking at sidewalk markings, anyway. Look at this light.

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Horton St., Cantu & Sons, undated

An awful housefire happened the day before yesterday, on the west side of Horton Street between Michigan and Jerome (125 Horton). The family lost four pets and all their possessions, and the house was ruined. I walked past it today and it had already been demolished. It was a nice old house, built in 1914. The whole business is very sad.

The southern stamp, barely legible in the mud. (It was raining.)

To mark the end of the house’s time in the neighborhood, I collected the only stamps from the sidewalk out front. They are both Cantu & Sons, probably a pair. The southern stamp is undated. The northern stamp may have been dated originally; it’s hard to tell because of how worn it is. I have seen Cantu stamps in this style from 1986 and ’87, so this likely dates from around then.

The northern stamp is easier to read but does not appear to have been dated.