A popular refrain in Phoenix is that the city has no history. This is false of course, as it’s been around for 130 years and has accumulated many great stories during this time. The problem is that much of our historic building have either been demolished  (many for no other reason than parking) or painted—or even [shudder] stuccoed—over.

This is why it is great to have passionate property owners like Michael Levine in our community. He and his business partner, Angela Paladino, are painstakingly  removing layers of paint from the oldest remaining (and one of the most storied) warehouse in downtown Phoenix, the 1905 Phoenix Seed & Feed Capitol Warehouse.  Underneath over a century of use and abuse, the building’s original sign(s) are emerging thanks to a very sensitive method of stripping away the layers of paint that is being used instead of sand-blasting.

Michael is amazed at how well what he believes may be the oldest remaining sign in Phoenix has held up.

The warehouse building, located at 411 S. 2nd St., was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984; acquired by Michael in 2003; and added to the Phoenix Historic Property Register in 2004.  It was also featured in the 2010 Jane’s Walk Phoenix.

You can see more pictures of the building and the paint stripping process on Michael’s Facebook page.

Update:

Here is a time lapse video of the first past of paint stripping: