18 replies to this topic

[Lmichigan]

Well, on the lazy afternoon of Easter Sunday I decided to do a residential tour of a historic residential neighborhood just north of downtown Lansing,MI.  It was even more desserted than usual, but I like it like that.    Just about all of the homes are nearly 90 years old or much older (most dating back to the late 1800's and a few back to 1850).  The neighborhood (which has experienced severe decline) is mostly low-income now.

Here's a map of the area I walked which parts of both Oldtown mostly east of the river, and Walnut, mostly west of the river north of Saginaw Street.
  

I started out on Center Street which is mostly industrial with some scattered housing such as this at the very southern end of this street that connected downtown and Old Town:


This old house is now an apartment structure that sits on the steep slopes heading down towards the river.  A lot of the houses here have been leveled so it's pretty isolated down by the river.




Further towards center of Old Town Center Street becomes industrial and rises above the riverbank to get views like this


A block east is a major thoroughfare: Cedar Street.  Here's the vacant, but waiting to be renovated historic Cedar Street School.


Another old house on Cedar Street in Old Town


A row of old homes heading towards downtown on Cedar.  This area would really benefit from infill which has skipped over this area


Heading back to Center Street near the river you get this view looking into downtown over and empty lot that will soon hold light industrial.  Riverfront Towers stands at the border of downtown and Old Town.




Crossing the Grand into the very edge of Old Town I snapped this shot of a local business: Elderly Instruments.  It claims to have the most guitars in Michigan, and holds weekly indie concerts.


Going into almost Walnut Neighborhood (almost entirely residential), there are some more historic houses on Maple Street.


A block east I began to head down Capitol Avenue towards downtown catching a shot on Emmanuel First Luthern Church, a neighborhood church.


900 North Block of Capitol Avenue




800 North Block of Capitol Avenue






Heading back towards Old Town on Washington Avenue (Lansing's historic main street).  After large parts of the main street were turned into pedestrian malls (for Lansing Community College and a few businesses along the north part of the CBD) it totally disconnected Old Town from downtown which has led to a decline in both.

800 Block of North Washington Avenue


Central Free Methodist Church on the 800 north block




900 north block of Washington Avenue








Lastly, a few streetscapes...

Looking south from the 900 north block of Washington Avenue towards downtown


Looking north towards the commercial district of Old Town




Another downtown tour is coming later...

[bobliocatt]

Great pics!  Its always nice to see what residential neighborhoods, outside of downtown, look like in smaller often overlooked cities.

BTW, I've always been interested in industrial architecture.  In the skyline shot, there's a plant with three large stacks in the background.  What type of factory is that?  Do you have any close ups of it.

[Lmichigan]

That's the massive Ekert Power Station, part of the Lansing Board of Water and Light, at the very edge of downtown to the south.  It's stacks are 620 feet tall.







Lansing does have pretty good industrial architecture for a city it's size.  The Ottawa Street Station (also downtown) at 313 feet is another impressive art deco industrial building

[Allan]

Great photos!  I especially like the house in this photo:


If only they would do something with the porch.  While I'm sure it's convenient when it's enclosed like that, it would look much better if it was open, as I'm sure it was originally.

[wolverine]

See!?  Even LMich likes to take pictures of industrial architecture/ power plants.  [see my thread]

[dnast]

Great tour! I was wanting to see more of Lansing's neighborhoods. There's a  nice mix of homes in that area. I had to laugh at the name "Elderly Instruments", though. It just doesn't have that ring to it, lol.

In this picture in the bottom right corner - what's up with the gaps in the sidewalk?

[Lmichigan]

You know, I didn't notice those when walking but Lansing is notorious for not upkeeping it's sidewalks. For a smaller city it's really pedestrian unfriendly as you can see with the countless one-way streets (Cedar is one of those) and really wide ones at that.

Wolverine, in Lansing, we're lucky.  All of our powerplants are on rivers so there is not much they can do to stop people from taking pics from the other sides of the river.  

[dunveth]

Lmichigan,  I seem to follow you from forum to forum...

(aka missnmich)

I've lived in a lot of places since I left Michigan, but Lansing will always hold a special place in my heart.

How's my old E. Michigan Ave. neighborhood doing? (Sparrow Hospital area)?

[Lmichigan]

The area is still an odd mix of businesses, but Sparrow Hospital is undergoing a major expansion.  If you haven't been hear since the parking deck was added on to it a few years back, you'd be surprised.  

Also, quite a few ethnic restaurants and stores are filling storefronts along E. Michigan Avenue (i.e. a Muslim market, an Armenian restaurants, and quite a few others).

[ZachariahDaMan]

Very nice pictures Lmichigan, I always love seeing old houses.

[GRDadof3]

LMichigan

I remember from growing up in Lansing that I always liked the architecture of the Michigan School for the Blind, and the Turner Dodge Mansion.  Do you have any pics of those (and are they still around)?

Jeff

[Lmichigan]

Both are still around and both are still in use.  Suprisingly, the Turner-Dodge is under constant resotration and is really looking good.  I have a picture of the Turner-Dodge, and have to get photos of the School for the Blind complex.

[Lmichigan]

Here's a pic from over a year ago.  They have since repainted the columns and done other restoration work.

[hood]

Unfortunatly, The school for the blind was recently closed and the main building has been boarded up, I'll see if I can work on some pics. It spent the past several
years as state offices and the Department of Corrections training school, for prison guards. There has been some talk of handing the property over to the city but nothing official.

[Lmichigan]

Part of the complex is still in use as the Mid-Michigan Public School Academy.

[GRDadof3]

hood, on Jul 22 2005, 06:15 PM, said:

Unfortunatly, The school for the blind was recently closed and the main building has been boarded up, I'll see if I can work on some pics. It spent the past several
years as state offices and the Department of Corrections training school, for prison guards. There has been some talk of handing the property over to the city but nothing official.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It has been awhile since I have been on that side of Lansing.  Does it look anything like this old postcard:



If it even slighty resembles this, DO NOT let them tear it down

[hood]

Nope, they remodeled it, But it stil looks very nice and historic. It has been painted with a redbrick tone and the side of the building visible in the postcard now has columns rising the full height of the building, I have a picture of the building as it looked like this. And as far as I know there are NO plans to tear it down.

[hood]

Lmichigan, I seen these two photos of yours on SSP, they are very good, just thought I would share them...

Is this at 496 & Cedar?


This pic has sort of a doomsday look to it.

[Lmichigan]

Actually it's across the river from the where River Street meets St. Joseph and Main Street where they conjoin at the river downtown.  I crawled up the embakement a ways and shot the picture.  I thought it really illustrated how divided the north and southsides are since they are cut off by both a river and a widefreeway.