This very worn Department of Public Works stamp is on the front walk of a house on the north side of Larned Street between Holmes and Jones. The last digit is a little hard to read but I think it’s 1926. Another DPW stamp across the street, similarly hard to read, I had previously decided was probably 1926, and stamps tend to come in clusters like that. The stamp is what I call the “first style” of DPW stamps, which were used from the teens through the forties.
What’s curious about this one is that it’s on a house’s front walk, not a public sidewalk. I have seen DPW stamps on driveway aprons before (presumably replaced during road or utility work) but this is the only one I have seen on a front walk. I am assuming it must have been damaged by utility work for the city to have gotten involved.
This entry marks the debut of a new, I hope recurring, feature: the Hall of Fame. Regular readers know that I already have a Hall of Shame. I thought I should balance it with a feature celebrating the unsung heroes who have, in some way, gone above and beyond for the cause of sidewalks in Lansing.
Looking east on Larned from the corner of Jones.
The homeowner on the northeast corner of Jones and Larned is apparently responsible for this “sidewalk” made of pavers. It picks up where the sidewalk abruptly ends on Larned and goes to Jones Street. Across Jones to the west, the official sidewalk resumes. Google Street View images of this block from 2011 show a deep furrow where people have been walking across the lawn to get from one disconnected sidewalk to the next, so a path was obviously sorely needed.
Here is where the sidewalk abruptly ends on Larned and the homegrown sidewalk starts.
I find it really strange that the sidewalk ends about two lot widths from the edge of Jones, only to resume again after. I have no inside knowledge about how the city decides where sidewalks have to be installed, but I have noticed some patterns from which I have inferred rules, or at least rules of thumb. A block that has no houses facing it will usually not have a sidewalk. If a house is the last one on a block before a dead end or an unoccupied block, the sidewalk might end there. But if there is at least one house on a block, and somewhere else one might be walking to from there, it usually has a sidewalk all the way along. This gap on Larned is an anomaly, at least compared with the experiences I’ve had of east side sidewalks.
I wonder if the city would have granted the permit needed for the resident to just decide to install a proper sidewalk. They can compel an owner to install one (I’ve seen it in very old news articles), but can they forbid it? Would they be likely to, if someone wanted to pay for it? I don’t know. But as a “good enough” solution and a service to pedestrians, this “sidewalk” earns my respect. So won’t you join me in saluting the inaugural sidewalk Hall of Famer?
This rugged and worn stamp from the north side of Larned Street between Jones and Holmes seems hopelessly illegible at first blush. A comparison with other stamps, however, reveals that it is probably a William Meister stamp from 1921.
Looking west on Larned Street. This stamp is close to the corner of South Holmes.
This is on the last bit of sidewalk on the north side of Larned Street, before the sidewalk abruptly vanishes to the west. It’s nearly across the street, just a couple of lots west, from where the sidewalk ends on the south side of Larned.
It appears to be O.E. Porter, but who that was is something I have yet to determine. I hope I’m reading it right. “Porter” is certainly clear, as is the E before it. I’m not sure whether this one is undated or whether those vague markings below the name are the ghost of an illegible date.
Looking back eastward on Larned from the point where the sidewalk ends.
This neighborhood, down near the railroad tracks and I-496, is a short walk from my house, but I haven’t explored it thoroughly yet. I will probably correct that soon, since I’m getting a bit bored with my usual rambles. The neighborhood was developed by the Lansing Improvement Company and has many interesting old houses. Check out some old Lansing Improvement Company letterhead courtesy of the Capital Area District Library’s digital local history collection. There are some names you may recognize on there, including Edward W. Sparrow, Eugene Cooley, and one Horatio H. Larned.
I love how the moss has filled in some of the letters. Based on close inspection and feeling it with my fingers I think the date is 1926.
This stamp is on the south side of Larned between Jones and Holmes. There is a stretch of sidewalk here, but no homes on this side of the street. Instead there is a park-like area behind which I-496 looms. I was surprised to find sidewalk here, since as I have noted, blocks or side of blocks with no houses commonly have no sidewalk. I deduced that this side of the street once had houses, and they were probably removed during the 496 project. Afterward I checked HistoricAerials.com and that confirmed my theory.
Looking southeast toward the 496 overpass.
It’s surprising that the sidewalk was never removed in the intervening years, given how they have been tearing sidewalk out of the depopulated blocks of Urbandale. It doesn’t serve much purpose now. It stops suddenly before reaching any useful destination, and anyone actually trying to get somewhere on Larned will surely be walking on the other side, where the remaining houses are. For some reason they just never decided to pull it out, despite it being an orphaned vestige since the late 1960s. The most recent stamps on it are a pair of E.F. Sheets stamps from 1963. I expect they won’t bother repairing anything there again.
Looking east so as to give a better view of where the sidewalk suddenly ends.
