219 N Milwaukee St, Milwaukee, WI 53202

The Phoenix Building is an office complex, which means its doors are unlocked during normal M-F, 8-5 business hours. If you go, be unobtrusive; respect the tenants inside in regard to noise. I certainly got some curious looks from employees returning from the bathrooms as I snapped pictures. I smiled. They smiled back. Normally I wouldn’t advise anyone to spend part of their vacation in an office complex, but the building has some unique history that might appeal to lovers of design and typography, advertising, fashion illustration, history, antiques, and possibly feminists.

Before The Phoenix was an office complex, it was the house for a hosiery manufacturer. My interest in the building starts with my grandmother. During WWII, she was part of the generation of women who went to work. She worked a seamstress at Phoenix Hosiery Co., sewing the toes on stockings. She vaguely referred to the building as having been “downtown.” She told me stories about working there and I looked for it whenever I was driving around. I assumed the building had since been torn down, but not long after she passed away, I found myself wandering its halls for a client meeting. Funny how that happens.