I decided to walk a bit in a different neighborhood, Old Town near Bancroft Park, to try to get some new stamps. I didn’t find anything entirely new there on a short jaunt, but I think this is another instance of the hard-to-read stamp on Elizabeth Street that I thought might read “Buonodono.” Unlike that one (which is undated) this one seems to bear a date of 1961.
It’s on Ohio Avenue near the northwest corner of Ohio and Taft.
I found this faint stamp on a walk leading from the back door of a house facing Allen, on the southwest corner of Allen and Elizabeth Streets. The walk extends diagonally northwest toward Elizabeth.
I can’t make out the name exactly although I think it is [initial] [initial] Buonodono, maybe R.D. I haven’t been able to figure anything out about the contractor. It is undated, but the house was built in 1923 so perhaps it dates to then.
I found this one outside a hotel where I went to a convention last weekend, the Marriott at Eagle Crest in Ypsilanti, off South Huron Street and James L. Hart Parkway. Unfortunately, the contractor name is illegible. It is [something] Concrete, and the style is extremely similar to the Audia Concrete stamps from the same year that I have found in Lansing. Audia is located in Milford, not too far from Ypsilanti, but I am pretty sure this is not them, because I thought I could make out an F in the otherwise illegible name. It is probably another contractor who bought their stamp from the same supplier.
Unfortunately I could not find another stamp in the expanse of concrete in front of the hotel so this one will have to remain a mystery.
Wet pavement and streetlights combined to give me an especially good look at this half-lost stamp. It’s from the north side of East Michigan Avenue between Fairview and Magnolia, in front of the MetroPCS store. When I first photographed it back in 2020, I had to peel away a sod layer to see to the edge of the hacked-off slab, but thanks to my efforts at that time it is still all as visible as it can get. The reason for the update – besides that it’s an especially good look at it – is that I am now quite confident in the date being 1927. The curve of the penultimate numeral does not make sense for anything other than a 2.
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.
This hopelessly worn stamp is on a driveway apron on the south side of Prospect Street between Virginia and Holmes. The only part that can be made out is the date, which I am inclined to say is 1952, especially since that’s the year the house was built. I had hoped that I would be able to make something of the contractor name by tweaking the photo, but no luck. The style of the date marking is unfamiliar – it’s larger than most – so I wonder if it is a contractor I haven’t covered in the blog yet. Sadly, I’ll never know.
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.
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.
This is on the south side of Hickory Street between Jones and Holmes. I found it first over the winter, but the sidewalks were too slushy for me to have any hope of reading it. I waited to see if nicer weather would make it legible. Sadly, it did not. It was a beautiful day today and the sidewalk was as clear as it is going to get, and still the only legible part is the very clear date. There is a name there, but the only part I can read is an E at the beginning, and a suspected O at the end (perhaps part of Co.). Too bad.
This is somewhere around the fourth time I’ve gone to try to read this stamp, located on the south side of Hickory Street between Euclid and Pennsylvania. I really wonder what the resident here thinks about the person who keeps pulling up, getting out of the car, kicking at the sidewalk a bit, and then leaving again. Unfortunately, I think this one is uncrackable. It’s just too worn. I’ve tried different times a day and different sidewalk conditions, and I think all that’s left would be to use one of the tricks of gravestone readers and push aluminum foil into it. I’m not sure I quite have the nerve to do that because of the likelihood of having to explain to someone what I’m up to. I’m tempted, though.
It’s clearly old, not just because it’s worn but because of the style. The date looked (and felt; I traced my finger in it) like “10” on this visit. I’m almost positive the first digit is 1 but the second could be anything relatively round.
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.
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.
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.
They are tantalizingly close to legible, but unfortunately I can only pick out a few letters.