Posted on by bunnyhugger

S. Hayford Ave., DPS, 1964

This is the latest DPS (Department of Public Service) stamp I have found, and the only DPW/DPS/etc. stamp I have found from the 1960s. It’s on a stretch of sidewalk in front of Urbandale Farm, on the east side of South Hayford Avenue between Horton and the dead end. Hayford has lost the last stretch of sidewalk on the west side of the street to the Urbandale demolition project, but most of the east side’s sidewalk is still intact since there are three houses still hanging on to the south of Urbandale Farm.

The southern stamp of a pair. The last digit looks altered, as though a “4” were written overtop something else.
The northern stamp makes the decade impossible to read, but the “4” is more prominent.

Urbandale Farm was the first big urban farm project in Lansing. It sits on a site that once held the Hayford Street Pumping Station. Yes, Hayford Street. When I first ran into references to Hayford Street in the Lansing City Code, I thought it was a careless error. But this photo of the old pumping station, clearly marked “Hayford Street Pumping Station,” tells me otherwise. The photo, dated 1985, comes from the Caterino Real Estate Image Collection at the Capital Area District Library. David Caterino, from the 1960s through the 1980s, used to drive around and take photos of notable structures, often because he had reason to think they were about to be demolished. Indeed, there is a photo of its demolition on page B1 of the Lansing State Journal, May 20, 1986. The caption reads,

LANDMARK FALLS

Lansing’s Hayford Street Pumping Station, built in 1932, fell to a wrecking company crane Monday. It is to be replaced by a new station on Mifflin Street on Lansing’s east side.

Mifflin Street, you say? If that isn’t an error, then Mifflin has also ascended from being a mere Street to a lofty Avenue sometime after May 1986. At the moment, all the streets from Clemens east to Mifflin (which includes Hayford) are Avenues. I need to get old official maps to figure out whether some of the others are also former Streets and when they changed.

The fence around the Urbandale Farm. It dates from the pump station days, since it can be seen in another Caterino photo.

The Hayford station was apparently desperately overdue for replacement at the time. It all too often broke down, causing around 40 nearby houses to flood with sewage. It’s just a shame that the new one (a baleful box on a hill at the south end of Mifflin) doesn’t have the sense of style and propriety that the 1930s edifice did.

Looking north on Hayford, with Urbandale Farm on the right.