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.
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.
I found this very worn and craggy Lansing DPW stamp on Jerome Street, near the northeast corner of Jerome and Ferguson. The date is impossible to be certain about but it looks to me like something in the 1930s, possibley 1939, which is consistent with it being what I call a “second style” DPW stamp.
Merry Christmas, dear readers, all two or three of you! Today I thought I would share something simple but puzzling. I have noticed these marks on the sidewalk in front of the big old Tudor house on Jerome Street. No, not this one, the other big old Tudor house on Jerome Street, on the northwest corner of Jerome and Horton. There are three of these geometric marks on the sidewalk in front of that house, and I don’t know what they are.
I think I have noticed markings like this in one other place on the east side (in the Prospect Place neighborhood, if I remember correctly). They seem too utilitarian and asymmetric to be purely decorative, but then, what do they do? If anyone knows or has a guess I would be interested to hear it.
This one is on the front walk of a house on the north side of Jerome Street between Custer and Rumsey. Unfortunately it is not quite legible in full. The name appears to be two initials and then a surname. The surname looks like it starts with “Look-” but might actually be “Locke” as I can find evidence of a family with that name in Lansing in this time period. The line underneath that is totally illegible. I had no joy trying to find any contractor matching these details. At least the date is clear enough.
The stamp is diagonal in the bottom right corner of the sidewalk end of the front walk.
On the southeast corner of Jerome and Ferguson Streets is a pair of V.D. Minnis stamps, around the corner from each other. I used to think all V.D. Minnis stamps were undated, until I found one dated ’07. Still, I took that one to be an odd exception, and the numerous undated ones to be a rule. I am reconsidering that in light of my close inspection of these stamps.
OK, so there’s a bit broken off the upper left corner. It’s probably at least 110 years old, I’d say it’s lasted pretty well. (Facing west on Jerome Street toward Ferguson.)
I noticed that both of them have a horizontal line underneath, which corresponds with the hyphen in the 1907 stamp (presumably separating the month and year, though the month had been obliterated from that one). I got down and under the yellow light of a street lamp I looked at it up close, and felt with my fingers. There are depressions on either side of the line, suggesting a worn-away month and year. After a bit more looking and feeling I suddenly thought (though it may be spurred by wishful thinking) that I could make out a very faint year: ’07. I am almost positive the first digit is a zero. It is in front of a 1904 house, so this might be from the first sidewalk that was laid when the subdivision was developed.
The stamp on Ferguson. OK, this one has more issues. Still, I hope I look this good when I’m 114.
A closer look at the Ferguson stamp.
I have a new theory about V.D. Minnis stamps, which is that they aren’t undated. The dates have just worn away in almost all cases. This might seem strange, except that the 1907 stamp on Regent Street shows a date that is shallower and cruder than the name, possibly due to being drawn in by hand.
Nothing too special here except the charming practice I have seen a few times from other contractors, stamping both ends of the same square, facing opposite directions. It seems to be a way of indicating that they are only laying a single block. This double-stamped block is on the north side of Jerome Street between Custer and Ferguson.
One end of the slab…
… the other end. I realize now that I failed to take an overview showing the whole thing.
Here is a new contractor for this blog, via a stamp located on the southeast corner of Jerome Street and Custer Avenue behind the Church of the Resurrection’s parking lot. It really is right on the corner so it’s impossible to designate this slab as uniquely on one street or the other, though the way it’s oriented would make it Custer. This is an interesting one, unfortunately undated. I can narrow down an earliest possible date – 1924 – but then things get fuzzy.
Most readers will be familiar with the legacy of Francis J. Corr, though might not know it. He was the Fran of Frandor (his wife Dorothy was the dor). He was the original owner and developer of Frandor, and one of his big wins was lining up Sears as an anchor before construction. It was a good run, Frankie. Speaking of good runs, Corr died in 1972 at the age of 92, according to a Lansing State Journal obituary on December 26 of that year. (I note that the person who clipped that article at Newspapers.com is username “mckrill” who previously supplied a source of clippings about sidewalk contractor W.H. McKrill. I don’t know what to make of this, except that there might be some connection between the McKrill and Corr families.)
This photo, facing south on Custer, demonstrates that the stamp uses a pretty large typeface, as they go.
The State Journal of January 7, 1945 has a piece titled “Executives of Corr Brothers Construction Firm.” It states that Corr Brothers Construction Firm had announced the addition of Francis J. Corr, Sr., as a partner. According to the article, Corr started in the construction business in 1911 as a partner in McHenry and Corr. When Gerald McHenry died in 1924, Corr continued the business under the name Francis J. Corr. Then in 1937 he brought his son, Francis J. Corr, Jr., into the business and changed the name to Francis J. Corr and Son. Finally, in 1944 he sold his interest in the business to his wife, Dorothy. It appears to have existed at least into the 1950s, since the May 11, 1956, State Journal reports that the Francis J. Corr company was involved in the Michigan State University stadium project. I assume that Francis Jr. stayed with the original company; the Corr Brothers business that Francis Sr. joined was run by two other sons.
I took a late walk after a lousy day, so this is the best I can do. It’s a Paul Wright stamp on the south side of Jerome Street between Clemens and Fairview. My brain wants to fill in the mis-struck final digit to make a 3, but when I compare it with the other Paul Wright stamp I’ve collected from North Magnolia Avenue nearby, it looks like it matches the shape of the 2 from that one. I’m inclined to guess they’re both 1952.
A driveway apron on the north side of Jerome between Ferguson and Custer caught my eye. It is relatively uncommon to have stamps at all on the driveway, but this one had four! The two pictured stamps are set diagonally on either corner, facing the sidewalk.
The stamp in the left corner, seen from the sidewalk. It’s that time of year when all the trash emerges from hibernation and frolics in the wind.
The right corner.
At first I was going to joke that they must have been especially proud of their work to stamp it twice, but then I realized the likely reason. There are actually two contiguous driveways here that share one big curb cut, as is common in the neighborhood. The double corner stamps are probably signaling “we did this side; the other side is some other contractor’s problem.” The other side has a single 1987 BWL stamp on it.
Looking east on Jerome. The stamps are on the near side of the driveway apron.
There are also upper and lower blocks making up each of the two sides. The DPW stamps are on the upper block, next to the sidewalk. The L & L stamp is on the lower block, next to the road.
