Congrats on the new home. Yeah I agree these prices are very out of line with reality. I've seen some really bad places get top dollar recently. I feel bad for people who have to buy right now. Newman Lofts sounds really nice and downtown East Lansing is very walkable and centrally located too.
Thanks! The building is named after an MSU architectural design professor and I believe that the extra nice design for this building reflects some of his ideas for urban living.
If you would like to check out a really cool new urban park that might serve as an inspiration for our Riverfront Park check out Little Island Park in New York City. Of course it was financed by very wealthy folks but I could see something "like" this [ an amphitheater, big trees, nice paths ,gardens] the west side of our park.
Where on campus was that? Maybe out in the fields? I took a walk around the central campus and there was hardly a branch down. The Red Cedar was rolling along quite high [I think they could surf at the falls] but not out of the banks yet at least at that area. I had been "traumatized" by the weather on Cape Cod so I was freaking out just a bit, I was fearing us and for the trees and so we went downstairs while the sirens were going off. When they started the music up at Harper's we figured it was safe to go back upstairs.
Just a teeny bit of water seepage in the basement, fared good otherwise. I'm just west of Frandor and on a bit of a hill so we really don't have water issues like a lot of people in Lansing do, but the sheer amount of water that came down along with the threat of tornadoes was eerie to say the least. Hope you all fared just fine as well.
I went to the MSU Board Museum a few days ago, they have a very interesting exhibit about about automotive design, and it's influence on art and life. Part of the exhibit included a whole section about the construction and destruction of I-496. There is a photo mural of 1930's Lansing along the future path of the highway on the floor. They offer stickers that people can note a place that is of special memory. I put one on the corner of Main Street and Logan where my Dad would own a Sunoco service station in the late '50s until the state bought the land for the highway in the early '60s. It was cool to note the home of R.E. Olds and all the fine homes in that South Washington area. Even though the photo was taken in the '30s it really shows Lansing's densely packed central city before the highways split it all up and GM took over so much of the area.
The station was on the northeast corner of S. Logan and Main Street right where the bridge over 496 is, it was one of the first properties they took. I believe there were gas stations on three of the four corners.
I remember this church sitting on a hill with no trees around it, it was a nice building, there was an African American congregation there when I was young in the early '60s the name Grace may have been part of the church's name?.. It is too bad about it being torn down, after surviving the 496 project. I wonder if GM will ever reduce it's footprint in that area?
I do remember when it was all residential from the north side of the Logan Street bridge all the way down Olds Ave, but I don't remember any sort of loop or short cut on Birch Street. The blocks were in a grid pattern, so I could be wrong but I think Birch Street was just a small residential street. On the south side of the river Birch Street was not even paved back then. GM used Olds Ave a lot for transporting the car bodies from Fisher, the workers all piled onto S. Logan and Main Street. Olds Ave to the east was a public street until GM/Olds did a major expansion in the late '60s and early 70's. Thank you for finding out the name of the church, since I have been back here I was beginning to wonder if there really was a church there and now that you said Friendship Baptist, I'm like oh that was it!
My Dad ,Uncle, and Grand Father owned the station, and while they owned it, it was a Sunoco Station, they had that dial on the gas pumps for choosing the different grades of gas, and this spinning top like thing that spun while the gas was being pumped. There were also several more gas stations another block to the north, and over the bridge to the south there was a Sinclair Station at Logan and Moores River Drive, I remember the green dinosaur on their sign. It was a very busy corridor back then.
I see you are saying the new south bound lanes of MLK follow the old Birch Street. To be honest I can not remember going down Birch Street on the north side of the river. My Dad was well kind of a "fearful" of passing through that neighborhood himself passing that "fear" to us kids, even though he owned a business right there! We always used Everett Drive to get over to Sexton. While I was going to Sexton I would often walk home to find there was nothing or no one to be afraid of.
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I remember this church sitting on a hill with no trees around it, it was a nice building, there was an African American congregation there when I was young in the early '60s the name Grace may have been part of the church's name?.. It is too bad about it being torn down, after surviving the 496 project. I wonder if GM will ever reduce it's footprint in that area?
My Dad ,Uncle, and Grand Father owned the station, and while they owned it, it was a Sunoco Station, they had that dial on the gas pumps for choosing the different grades of gas, and this spinning top like thing that spun while the gas was being pumped. There were also several more gas stations another block to the north, and over the bridge to the south there was a Sinclair Station at Logan and Moores River Drive, I remember the green dinosaur on their sign. It was a very busy corridor back then.