I have always thought this is a nice looking building, they used quality materials like marble and sandstone. It was such a radically different design from the 19th century City Hall, folks back then thought Lansing was just going to keep growing and progressing and we needed a modern 20th century center for our city. I can remember having pride in this building. The new hospital kind of resembles the center tower's design on a larger scale.
It was very busy on this street. It must be in town, maybe the eastern border of Lansing near present-day Frandor/127? I remember a photo I saw of the interchange of Grand River and Saginaw which made kind of criss-cross that may have been the boulevard pictured here. It looks like one of those service stations like the one that still stands in Old Town on the left.
Wow, I get an A! Some photos of the old days can draw me in and I can really picture old Lansing. Thanks for posting this one. I wonder if the pavement in this photo is the original concrete pavement of which there is a remnant on displayed in this median today. It's been a while since I have looked at this plaque but I believe it notes this was the first concrete paved street in Lansing, Michigan, or the USA? Something like that!
This looks like it was built to last. I wonder why they took this bridge out? It looks like there was space enough to pass under 496 there. The bridge was less than 50 years old when the removed it.
I was at MSU at the same time as Ervin, and I would often see him at the Kellogg Center, and also in downtown Lansing a couple of times where I saw him shopping at Kositcheks and Linn and Ownes Jewelry Store while I was also shopping there. I even saw him at the disco, you could not miss him, dancing head and shoulders above everyone else! I feel like I know him after all these years, he is a good guy!
I agree. When they rebuilt this bridge they used similar materials for the [burtalist style] walls that they used at the pedestrian mall on N. Washington Sq... I guess to match but those walls and the bridge walls were never great looking to me, and I remember being struck by the fact that you could not see the river passing over the bridge in a car. The city has put flower boxes along the railings which do help. I could see green walls for this bridge by planting Ivy and flowering vines that could grow on the textured cement. Rows of flag poles along the railings with large colorful oversized flags or banners framing the sight of the Capitol going down the avenue could be an inexpensive way to superficially improve to the look of the bridge. I am not downtown at night so maybe they already have, it would be nice it illuminate the stone buttresses that support the bridge which I believe may have been part of the former bridge's structure. That is the only part of the bridge that has any visual interest.
Yeah it would be cool to put an arch over the bridge (from north to south) that says "Lansing" on it, framed in such a way that when viewed from the center of Michigan Ave it will put the Capital in the center of the arch. As it is now, it's easy to forgot you're driving on a bridge entering the central business district.
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