Very Interesting. I never knew there was a Y there. This is the first photo I have seen of this old one. City Hall was so cool and massive. I have wondered if the used all that stone for another propose.
There was a YWCA somewhere downtown as well. I had LCC P.E. courses there before they opened the Gannon Building. It was a nice old building with a very nice ball room where they held many events. It was on the west side of downtown near the Post Office, I think. It was there until the 70's anyway.
The old YWCA building is a block south of the Capitol across from the post office/fedearl building where the Townsend Street Parking Garage stands now. I can't remember for some reason if it was still there up until the garage began construction in 2003 or not - I only remember that there was a surface parking lot to the north at the corner of Allegan and Townsend where the Capitol View/Boji Complex now stands - but it was there for many years until fairly recently. This was around the time I had started to more familiarize myself with downtown and when I began photographing everything downtown, but it was just after this.
Yes it must have been right where the ramp is now. I went to my first catered event there as the safety patrol member from Barnes Ave. The principal came and got me out of class, I was freaking out until he told me that I was going to this banquet, and I would be getting a safety award for the school. I was impressed with what I thought was a fancy ball room, and the catered lunch, with really good chocolate pudding for dessert. That was in 1966
LOTS of information I never realized. Most notably:
Apparently, the first two floors were designed specifically for Michigan National Bank, and because of this there was (still is?) a ceramic-tile lined tunnel beneath Allegan connecting the two. This allowed for not only each department being able to access each other directly, but it also connected the employees to the Michigan National Tower's underground garage.
Apart from allowing more unobstructed floor plates, the elevators and restrooms were moved to the eastside of the tower in case a skyscraper was built on the lot next to the tower. As we know, it's still a small parking area.
The building was designed by Kenneth C. Black, who designed many of Lansing's modern buildings including city hall down the street, and was constructed by The Christman Company, which is still going strong all these years later.
The height is specifically stated as being 168 feet from the sidewalk, whereas I was given a height of 158'-6" years ago. The LSJ citation seems more reliable as I'm seeing now I got the old height from none other than then-state Senator Virg Bernero. lol
There's an office penthouse that takes up the entire Allegan side on the 11th floor, but the rest if for mechanical equipment.
Anyway, lots of other technical data dealing with materials the the heating and cooling system, but it's all interesting for those of us with interest in architectural minutae.
The article says that the building was built for $2.5 million. Converting that to 2017 dollars using the CPI calculator brings it to about $21 million which is about what I would expect for the same building today. I was surprised at how much inflation has adjusted prices since 1960!
This may be old news (pun intended) for some of you, but it's new to me and incredibly interesting. I'm slowly reading through it today and pouring over the maps and suggestions.
Plate 5 on page 16 is particularly good. It shows which roads were current in 1921, and a proposal for connector roads and which roads should be widened.
It doesn't look like the city took much or any of his suggestions for the west and south west side opting instead for N/S and E/W roads instead of the diagonal suggestions.
So this is where one of the maps we talked about over three years ago came from.
Nice find. My biggest take-way from that map was that grade seperations were also planned at Shiawassee, Michigan and Kalamazoo. I've always been a bit embarrassed that on a major view to the Capitol at the edge of downtown you could be stopped be an random train. I guess the saving grace is that CSX traffic is down so much on the line that runs through Lansing they generally run longer trains and at night so there isn't much blocking of the streets during busy times of the day. And the Jackson & Lansing Railroad that uses this line is a switching operations so the trains are incredibly short. But I'd have loved for that grade seperation on these streets.
Oh, did you see the giant monumental park at Ranney in those plans?! That'd have been crazy!
OMG, look at this house that was at 429 North Cedar that I found on the public service department's facebook page. It belonged to James I. Mead and after his death became the city hospital.
The location was near the northwest corner with Shiawassee on the property of what is today Riverfront Apartments. You can still kind of see what this neighborhood use to be like with the Dyslexia Center a block east at Shiawassee and Larch.
We talked about this back in September in the general development thread, and I had a old annexation map showing it. But here is an old clipping showing an actual aerial of Aero Manor Airport located in the southeast quadrant of Holmes and Waverly on the southwest side back in 1960.
According to the clipping it was developed after 1960 as the northern extension to Churchill Downs, a neighborhood bound by Jolly to the south, Waverly to the west, Holmes to the north and Wainwright to the east. In the aerial which is facing generally north you can make out faintly Holmes Road running east-west through the center of the photo and Waverly to the left. At the bottom you can see the land cleared for the main section of Churchill Downs.
Comments
There was a YWCA somewhere downtown as well. I had LCC P.E. courses there before they opened the Gannon Building. It was a nice old building with a very nice ball room where they held many events. It was on the west side of downtown near the Post Office, I think. It was there until the 70's anyway.
Doing some searchess on Flickr and found this old news clipping of the Farnum Building (then Stoddard) from 1960, right after its completion.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lugnut215/33624905902/in/photolist-7AqpLe-TejrmS-Tt9wUe-Tejr3W-euVqEo-euSiBi-fMYJBE-fMGaEH-w9L5Qw
LOTS of information I never realized. Most notably:
Apparently, the first two floors were designed specifically for Michigan National Bank, and because of this there was (still is?) a ceramic-tile lined tunnel beneath Allegan connecting the two. This allowed for not only each department being able to access each other directly, but it also connected the employees to the Michigan National Tower's underground garage.
Apart from allowing more unobstructed floor plates, the elevators and restrooms were moved to the eastside of the tower in case a skyscraper was built on the lot next to the tower. As we know, it's still a small parking area.
The building was designed by Kenneth C. Black, who designed many of Lansing's modern buildings including city hall down the street, and was constructed by The Christman Company, which is still going strong all these years later.
The height is specifically stated as being 168 feet from the sidewalk, whereas I was given a height of 158'-6" years ago. The LSJ citation seems more reliable as I'm seeing now I got the old height from none other than then-state Senator Virg Bernero. lol
There's an office penthouse that takes up the entire Allegan side on the 11th floor, but the rest if for mechanical equipment.
Anyway, lots of other technical data dealing with materials the the heating and cooling system, but it's all interesting for those of us with interest in architectural minutae.
The article says that the building was built for $2.5 million. Converting that to 2017 dollars using the CPI calculator brings it to about $21 million which is about what I would expect for the same building today. I was surprised at how much inflation has adjusted prices since 1960!
This may be old news (pun intended) for some of you, but it's new to me and incredibly interesting. I'm slowly reading through it today and pouring over the maps and suggestions.
The Lansing plan ; a comprehensive city plan report for Lansing, Michigan / by Harland Bartholomew.
Plate 5 on page 16 is particularly good. It shows which roads were current in 1921, and a proposal for connector roads and which roads should be widened.
It doesn't look like the city took much or any of his suggestions for the west and south west side opting instead for N/S and E/W roads instead of the diagonal suggestions.
So this is where one of the maps we talked about over three years ago came from.
Nice find. My biggest take-way from that map was that grade seperations were also planned at Shiawassee, Michigan and Kalamazoo. I've always been a bit embarrassed that on a major view to the Capitol at the edge of downtown you could be stopped be an random train. I guess the saving grace is that CSX traffic is down so much on the line that runs through Lansing they generally run longer trains and at night so there isn't much blocking of the streets during busy times of the day. And the Jackson & Lansing Railroad that uses this line is a switching operations so the trains are incredibly short. But I'd have loved for that grade seperation on these streets.
Oh, did you see the giant monumental park at Ranney in those plans?! That'd have been crazy!
OMG, look at this house that was at 429 North Cedar that I found on the public service department's facebook page. It belonged to James I. Mead and after his death became the city hospital.
The location was near the northwest corner with Shiawassee on the property of what is today Riverfront Apartments. You can still kind of see what this neighborhood use to be like with the Dyslexia Center a block east at Shiawassee and Larch.
We talked about this back in September in the general development thread, and I had a old annexation map showing it. But here is an old clipping showing an actual aerial of Aero Manor Airport located in the southeast quadrant of Holmes and Waverly on the southwest side back in 1960.
According to the clipping it was developed after 1960 as the northern extension to Churchill Downs, a neighborhood bound by Jolly to the south, Waverly to the west, Holmes to the north and Wainwright to the east. In the aerial which is facing generally north you can make out faintly Holmes Road running east-west through the center of the photo and Waverly to the left. At the bottom you can see the land cleared for the main section of Churchill Downs.