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S. Pennsylvania Ave., DPW, 1941

This one is on South Pennsylvania Avenue, in front of the Marathon station at the southeast corner of Pennsylvania and Kalamazoo. It’s your basic, run-of-the-mill 1940s Department of Public Works stamp, very common around here.

Although I think of this gas station as being on Kalamazoo because it faces that way, I have learned that its street address is on Penn. It’s been a familiar sight for me for a long time, but I’ve never been inside it. I’m always headed out of town in the other direction when I stop for gas. Years ago, its canopy said MARATHON on one end and CONEY ISLAND on the other, and a sign on the side of the building dubbed it “Marathon Coney Island.” When my now-husband, then-sweetheart was first visiting me in Lansing, I drove past it while we were going somewhere, and in a bemused voice he said, “Coney Island?” I distractedly replied, “Oh yeah, I think they just have a food counter in there or something and that’s why it says that.” What I had completely forgotten is that as a New Jersey native he would be unfamiliar with the use of “Coney Island” to describe a specific kind of diner in Michigan. It occurred to me only a long time afterward that this would have sounded like a complete non sequitur. He didn’t ask for clarification at the time.

Sadly (in a way), the CONEY ISLAND banner is gone now, since it instead houses one of the locations of Jose’s Cuban Sandwich and Deli. I have had food delivered from there and it is very good. I just miss the big CONEY ISLAND letters.

The city’s online property records show that this building dates from 1964. I have a hard time imagining it as anything but a gas station, and yet I find Lansing State Journal ads from 1997 for Advanced Imaging Services Inc. at this location. Even more surprising, photos in the city’s property records seem to show that it only converted into a gas station around December 2004 (the city’s records show Advanced Imaging selling the property in July that year), and that it was vacant again by May 2008. I remember it as though it had always been the Marathon Coney Island until Jose’s moved in, but somehow it wasn’t even a gas station for the first several years I lived in town and I have no recollection of that now at all.

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S. Pennsylvania Ave., Illegible name, 1960

A tired-looking building that styles itself “Kalamazoo Plaza” sits at the northwest corner of East Kalamazoo Street and South Pennsylvania Avenue, and this stamp is on the Pennsylvania side of the property. In person I do think I see the faintest impression of a name above the date, but it is hopelessly illegible.

On the Pennyslvania side of the Dollar Palace/Falcon Auto Traders building.

The building was built in 1960, so the sidewalk probably had work done at the same time. Currently, the west side of the building is the closed-for-good husk of a neighborhood dollar store, Dollar Palace. The east side identifies itself as Falcon Auto Traders, though it does not really look like it is doing much in the way of auto trading. Prior to Falcon moving in, it was a pharmacy, Lansing Community Health Mart, until at least 2011.

Looking at the Falcon Auto Traders suite of the building. The taller side to the west, not visible, is the former Dollar Palace. The stamp is on the right side of the center slab.

At one point the building (I don’t know which suite) was home to Capital City Typing Service, which renamed itself Quality Typing Service later on, and may also have been known as Capitol Area Typing Service. The Lansing State Journal business pages of June 30, 1985, reported,

Capital City Typing Service, 925 E. Kalamazoo St., is under new management. The new owner, president is Lois “Jane” Joehlin, who has worked in the secretarial field for over 30 years and has an associate degree in business management.

The eastern suite of the building seen from Kalamazoo Street.

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S. Pennsylvania Ave., Minnis & Ewer, August 1910

Yes, it looks like several Minnis & Ewer stamps I’ve done before, but this one is new, I promise. It’s on the east side of South Pennsylvania Avenue between Prospect and Kalamazoo. There are a lot of Minnis and Ewer stamps with the same date (8-10) in this vicinity.

The northern stamp of the pair.

Actually, there are a pair of them, roughly on either end of a residential lot. At the moment they are copiously decorated with mulberries that have fallen from a tree that shadows the sidewalk.

Facing south from the northern stamp.
The southern stamp.

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S. Pennsylvania Ave., Basile, undated

This stamp is on the front walk of a house on the west side of South Pennsylvania Avenue between Eureka and Prospect, the next house south from Monday’s F.N. Rounsville stamp.

I don’t recognize the contractor name and I’m not confident about it. It looks like “Basile” but there might be something worn away before that. I haven’t yet found a surefire match to the name. The best lead I have is that there is, or was, a company in Livonia called Peter A. Basile and Sons. In fact, I have just learned I am not the only person in Michigan taking photos of sidewalk stamps, as someone on Flickr has posted a photograph of a Peter A. Basile and Sons stamp in Detroit. And that led me to the very startling discovery of an entire Flickr pool of sidewalk stamps. Unfortunately, the last posting to its discussion board is someone a year ago complaining that the group admin has gone silent and it is no longer possible to get photos approved for the pool.

Looking north on Pennsylvania. The stamp is at the foot of the front walk.

Update 5/12: Based on one I found on East Michigan Avenue, this probably originally read “Bond Basile.”

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S. Pennsylvania Ave., F.N. Rounsville, 1909(?)

This one is on the east side of South Pennsylvania Avenue just north of Prospect. I started to bypass it as I took it to be yet another very worn old V.D. Minnis stamp (I like those but don’t necessarily stop for all of them, plus they’re mostly undated), then I stopped and took another look and realized that it was something a lot rarer. Had this been the only one I had seen, it would have been illegible, but instead I recognized it as the second F.N. Rounsville stamp in my collection. The date is certainly in the aughts. In person I thought it looked like 09, but in the photo it looks like 08, which is the date on the other Rounsville stamp I found in the same neighborhood. I can’t make out a month this time.

The stamp is strangely off center. It makes me wonder if the sidewalk used to be wider here.

I’m glad I happened to see this one, because of the condition it’s in. It surely can’t last too much longer.

Looking north up Pennsylvania Avenue, from just north of the corner of Prospect Street.

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S. Pennsylvania Ave., Minnis & Ewer, 1910

After my recent embarrassment at having a commenter point out that the “undated” Minnis & Ewer curb walk actually has a (faint) date, I resolved to take a closer look at other Minnis & Ewer stamps. On my walk tonight I passed one I had previously blogged about on Kalamazoo. I took a closer look and I am still confident it is undated (or at least that the date is completely worn off). But a short way further on I saw another one that did have a date, worn but readable. So much for my previous claim that “all the ones I’ve seen are undated” – apparently I was not looking hard enough. I was going to use that one for tonight’s entry, but something unexpected happened. I turned the corner northward on Pennsylvania and found another Minnis & Ewer stamp, this one with a very clear date. So that one will be tonight’s entry. (I’ll probably feature the other one another time.)

That date, August 1910, makes this the oldest dated Minnis & Ewer that I have found so far. It is on the east side of South Pennsylvania Avenue between Kalamazoo and Prospect.

Looking south on Penn toward Kalamazoo. The stamp is on the closest slab in this photo.

It seems I generalized too quickly about Minnis & Ewer leaving stamps undated. This is a beautifully preserved stamp for being 110 years old and the slab is in good shape too.