E. Saginaw St., DPW, 1941

This “second style” Department of Public Works stamp is on the north side of East Saginaw Street between Maryland and Marshall (closer to Maryland), in front of Marshall Park. My husband and I walked to the park tonight because I heard that the city fireworks can be seen from there (pretty well, it turns out).

Looking east on East Saginaw with the stamp centered above the nearest sidewalk crack. The sparkles near the center of the sky are amateur fireworks going off in the distance.

Hall of Shame: new sidewalk behind Eastern HS

This stretch of sidewalk is new, but unstamped and undated, which is why it has been filed under “Hall of Shame.” The fact that it is not adjoining a public street probably exempts it from the city’s code on sidewalk marking, but I wanted to catalogue it for the historical value of recording when it was created.

The south end of the new sidewalk.

It branches off from the previously-existing sidewalk behind Eastern High School and the Armory, heading to the east along the edge of the Eastern grounds, eventually meeting up with Saginaw. It passes by a small sidewalk that cuts over to North Clemens Avenue at Fernwood Street. That sidewalk has been torn out (don’t worry, it had no stamps on it; I had checked in the past). My understanding is that it will be reconstructed to serve as part of the East Side Connector, a bicycle route between the east side to downtown.

The north end of the new path. The dirt area is where the old sidewalk from Clemens was removed (it heads left/east from here, through the fence) and I am standing on the asphalt path that continues north.

The sidewalk stops at the point where the link to Clemens was (and will be) and past that the path becomes asphalt. I don’t know, but I am guessing that this is the point when it becomes part of the East Side Connector.

E. Saginaw Hwy., Audia Concrete, 2006

This stamp is right on the southwest corner of East Saginaw Highway and Marshall Street, on the curb cut. I could equally have designated it as a Marshall Street stamp, but since it is in front of a building that faces Saginaw, the Army National Guard office, I let that break the tie.

Audia Concrete Construction (as their Facebook page calls them) or Audia Construction (as their Web site has it) is based in Milford. I know Milford best as the closest town to Kensington Park, the site of my most-loved elementary school field trip. The wild birds there would come and perch in your hand if you held out seed. Last I was there in the 2000s, they still did, and I imagine they still do. Anyway, more to the point, it’s in Oakland County, which means Audia came a long way to do this job.

The stamp isn’t visible in this photo because I am standing more or less right on it, facing the National Guard office to the southwest.

According to their Web site, Audia specializes in “concrete construction, excavation, underground utilities and site contract work” and was established in 1996.