Posted on by bunnyhugger

Jones St., BBRPCI, 1984

I saw this BBRPCI stamp on the east side of Jones Street, between Kalamazoo and Prospect, on my walk tonight. It’s not very interesting. There are similar ones all over the neighborhood, and I’ve covered lots of them in the blog. It’s definitely not the most interesting stamp in the vicinity, since there is a Minnis and Ewer stamp dated June 1910 one lot north.

The stamp is illuminated by a streetlight overhead, hence the color.

But this is the real reason I stopped here for photos. The rambling old house this stamp is in front of – while checking the address in the city’s property records, I noticed it was built in 1898 – is decorated to the nines for Halloween. The big street tree out front is festooned with caution tape and haunted by a black-cloaked phantom. There are decorations on the porch and on the adjacent yard (the house seems to be on a double lot). I wish people on my block decorated, but I’m the only person who does much.

Here, enjoy a few photos.

I try to walk different streets throughout the spooky season in search of decorations I haven’t seen yet, and this was a new display to me. When I walk around this neighborhood, I usually stay on Prospect and miss anything south of there, so I’m glad I tried checking some of the north/south streets for displays. I also found a nice one on Virginia.

A view of the lighted spot where the stamp is, for context. East Kalamazoo Street is in view. What looks like streaks of rain is actually caution tape fluttering from the branches of the street tree.
Posted on by bunnyhugger

Jones St., M & M Const., 1985

This pair of stamps is on the west side of Jones Street between Kalamazoo and Hickory. Jones has one of those puzzlingly inconsistent sidewalks. The north half of this block has sidewalk only on the east side, but the south half has sidewalk on both sides. Then the sidewalk disappears again and never reappears; no other part of Jones has a sidewalk on this side. (The east side also loses its sidewalk south of Bement Street.)

This is the northern, more legible stamp of the pair.

The date of this stamp provides a possible clue as to how this happened. The sidewalk lines up exactly with the backyard of a duplex facing Hickory Street. That house was built in 1985, much later than most of the surrounding properties. I wonder if the city’s policy at the time was to require contractors to install sidewalks facing new residences.

The southern stamp is a lot more worn, probably illegible.

Whatever its origin, it is a nearly pointless stretch of sidewalk. Anyone walking Jones Street is going to use the other side, where there is more consistent sidewalk. One of the side doors to the duplex connects to it, though in an awkwardly roundabout way: the side door walk connects to the driveway and the driveway to the sidewalk, but anyone coming out of the side of the house is probably just going to take the direct route across the lawn.

Looking south on Jones. I’m standing on the approach to an alley that connects Jones with Pennsylvania.

As for M & M Construction of Charlotte, I have been unable to find out anything about them, except that they don’t seem to be in business now.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

N. Clemens Ave., [T.Q.?] [T.D.] Jones, 1946

This stamp is on a driveway apron on the west side of North Clemens Avenue between Vine and Fernwood. The last name is clearly Jones, but I am not entirely confident about what precedes that. It looks like “T.Q.” or at least “something Q” or maybe “something O.”

Unfortunately, with such a common name it is usually very difficult to figure out anything about the contractor, and this is not an exception. I haven’t been able to find anything about a cement contractor named Jones operating in that time period.

The stamp is on the near end of the driveway apron, oriented to face the street.

Update 3/14/22: I saw this in better light the other day and I am now pretty sure it’s T.D. Jones. Still no luck figuring out who that is.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

Jones St., Minnis & Ewer, June 1910

I didn’t forget you for long, fellow Minnis & Ewer fans. Check out this stamp on the east side of Jones Street between Prospect and Kalamazoo. Notice anything about it? I mean besides what a beautifully preserved stamp it is.

Exactly! It solves the mystery of the “910” date stamp found elsewhere on Jones Street. (The area near Jones and Prospect is a rich vein of Minnis & Ewer stamps.) I wrote that I had never seen a four-digit year in a Minnis & Ewer stamp, so I couldn’t figure out why “910,” and was puzzled how the “910” were perfectly clear and there wasn’t even the trace of a “1.” But in this stamp we see both a four-digit year and a fainter “1” suggesting that it had a tendency to print lighter. Of the Minnis & Ewer stamps I have found with a legible month, this is the oldest. It appears that they phased out the four-digit year stamp between July and August 1910.

Looking north on Jones.
Posted on by bunnyhugger

Jones St., Minnis & Ewer, 1910

Welcome back to Capital City Sidewalks, or as it will soon be known, the Internet’s premier Verner D. Minnis fan site. Today I have for you a very hard-to-read 1910 Minnis & Ewer stamp from the west side of Jones Street between Prospect and Eureka. I walked out to this spot today specifically to get this one for today’s entry, only to find that it photographed quite poorly due to a glaze of slush that fell on it this morning and was in the process of freezing over. At first I thought I should wait until I get better conditions for a picture, but I wasn’t able to find anything else of interest that wasn’t similarly buried. Besides, I thought to myself, I’m pretty sure by now my readers all know what a Minnis & Ewer stamp looks like. It’s another one with an illegible month, though I was able to make the year legible by scraping the slush out with my bare finger. On est grand par l’amour, et plus grand par les pleurs…

You’ll notice the heavy sprinkling of evergreen needles decorating the stamp. They were contributed by this impressive tree, seen here as I approached the stamp from the north.

A portrait-oriented photo? Isn’t that against the rules?

I suppose all the needles must get tiresome, but I am always rather envious of houses that have majestic evergreens shading their front yards. All my trees are plain old Norway maples, except for the small ornamental cherry the previous owner planted behind the garden pond.

Looking north on Jones from the corner of Prospect. The stamp is in the more cleared area under the tree.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

Jones St., Minnis & Ewer, July 1910

This stamp is on the west side of Jones Street between Prospect and Eureka. There are quite a few older stamps in the area south of Sparrow. I know this looks like just another case of “can’t pass up a Minnis & Ewer stamp,” but this one is different. See?

The month can be read, for a change (for some reason it’s often marred or too worn to read), but that’s not what’s odd here. What is up with the year? It appears to read “910.” All other dated Minnis & Ewer stamps I have found just render the date like “7 – 10” – never, that I’ve seen, including the first two digits of the year. That seems to rule out that it was “1910” and the “1” wore away. Besides, the rest of the numbers are clear enough, and there isn’t the slightest impression where a “1” would be. I just don’t know what’s going on here. Anyway, it’s almost certainly meant to indicate 1910, a very common date for Minnis & Ewer stamps in this neighborhood.

Here’s a closer look, showing that there doesn’t appear to be a missing “1.”
Looking north on Jones Street.