Here’s another one that has been hiding from me in a spot I’ve traveled often enough. I think I can see why: it’s quite worn and probably visible only in good light. It’s on the east side of Lathrop Street, south of Elizabeth.
I have only found one other stamp by this contractor, so this is a rare one. XMC is, by my best guess, short for <guitar-lick>Xtreme Mason Contractors</guitar-lick>, a contractor from Laingsburg. The last digit of the date is a little uncertain but my best guess is that it’s a 2.
I noticed a city worker spray painting a low area on Regent Street’s sidewalk recently, and subsequently I’ve seen quite a lot of spray markings on uneven sidewalk edges around the neighborhood, including this impressive sequence of them on the west side of Lathrop Street between Kalamazoo and Marcus. I wonder if the recent activity is the work of Ryan Kost, who is running for City Council largely on a platform of “clean up trash and fix sidewalks.” A recent campaign Facebook post by Kost brags about how many bad sidewalks he’s reported to the city.
I don’t know that the paint indicates the city’s intention to do anything about it or if it’s just a warning. There are so many uneven sidewalks on the east side that they could never mark all of them. When I walk after dark, I look at my feet just about all the time. When an area is particularly dark, either due to a street light or a tree, I slow down to a creep. All that caution didn’t stop me from taking another fall the other night while walking along Prospect Street somewhere around Magnolia. As I stumbled, I knew I couldn’t stop the fall from happening, so I tried to launch myself at the grass for a softer landing. It was a good idea, but I fell just short. Luckily it wasn’t a very hard fall compared with some that I’ve had.
This stamp is from Lathrop Street south of Elizabeth, on the west side of the street. The sidewalk ends here. On the east side of the street it continues, as Lathrop curves around to meet Allen. Unlike other streets nearby that were truncated by the construction of I-496 in the late 1960s, Lathrop would always have ended more or less here, because Stabler Park lay to the south. The turn that joins Lathrop to Allen is now a bit diagonal, in parallel to 496, whereas it used to be more squared off (as I can see on HistoricAerials.com). The result is that while the last house on the east side has survived, the last two on the west side were 496 casualties.
The stamp is on the very last piece of sidewalk on the west side, and I find it odd that it extends a little past the driveway for no apparent reason. Since it’s dated 1988, it was laid long after any houses existed to the south. My guess is that it marks the lot line. The doomed house that used to be next door to this one, 628 Lathrop, sold in 1957 for $6,800 cash. The real estate card notes that it had a dark room in the basement.
A view of the stamp from the south. It’s on the closest edge, facing this way.
Past the fence is I-496, but once upon a time Stabler Park would have been over there.
Since it was dark and the stamp is so worn, you’ll have to take my word for it that this is a Lansing DPW stamp. It’s definitely from the 1940s, the question is what the last digit is. I shone a raking light over it and thought it was 1949. If so, that’s the latest DPW stamp I have found. All the 1950s stamps I have found read “Lansing DPS” instead.
It’s on the east side of Lathrop Street between Prospect and Kalamazoo, and I admit I partly wanted an excuse to show that the neighborhood has started to put its Halloween flair on, like the house this stamp is in front of.
I found this a bit curious, curious enough to feature it, though your mileage may vary. I have noted before that Able Concrete has used a few different stamps that I have found. What’s odd here is that this cluster of new-looking cement (on the west side of Lathrop St. between Marcus and Elizabeth) has Able stamps of two different varieties despite being the same year. There is one on the sidewalk, then a different one on the driveway and the driveway apron.
The stamp on the sidewalk. There isn’t a paired one on the other end of the work.
I suppose it’s possible that they were done at different times in the same year and they switched stamps between them, but it sure looks like a cluster that was probably all done at once. It’s as though they wanted to use a fancier stamp for the driveway than for the sidewalk.
The driveway stamp.
Another interesting choice is that the driveway apron stamp faces the street rather than the sidewalk. Other driveway apron stamps I have looked at have faced the other way.
I wish I could tell you more about this one, located on the west side of Lathrop Street between Kalamazoo and Prospect. The typeface and style reminds me of 1920s and 30s stamps I’ve seen, but as it isn’t dated there is no way to know. My attempts to find out any information about William Haskins have not produced any clues.
