"Super Barrio Bros.," a mural by late Phoenix artist Angel Diaz, occupied three sides of the building located at 1522 E. Van Buren St.
An obvious homage to the "Super Mario Bros." video game series, Diaz's vision included a bandana-wearing Mario cruising in a low-rider and a similar-looking Luigi leaping off a brick ledge. The main characters were joined by classic Mario characters such as Toad, Princess Peach and Yoshi.
It's gone now.
The back side of 1522 E. Van Buren St. used to be covered in a "Super Mario Bros."-inspired mural.
Jennifer Goldberg
On Aug. 12, building owners Van Buren Holdings LLC sold the property. Information about the sale is not yet available on the Maricopa County Assessor's Office or Maricopa County Recorder's Office websites.
The mural, which was completed in summer 2023, showed multiple scenes inspired by "Super Mario Bros." games. On the back side of the building, facing the parking lot, the black background of a "Super Mario Bros." fortress level was painted with images of fireball-spitting piranha plants, Koopa Troopas and final boss Bowser chucking one of his famous fireballs.
Along 16th Street, passersby saw a "Super Barrio Bros." logo done in colorful letters in the style of the "Super Mario World" game that came out for the Super Nintendo in 1990.
Toad and Princess Peach greeted visitors at the corner, then on the Van Buren side, Yoshi was stared down by a Banzai Bill while raccoon Mario from "Super Mario Bros. 3" soared over a cartoon landscape.
Removal of the mural began late last week, and as of Wednesday afternoon, "Super Barrio Bros." is gone and the building has been painted completely black. On the former "Super Barrio Bros." side along 16th Street, three rectangles have been knocked out of the concrete, ostensibly to make room for windows.
In an Aug. 19 Reddit post discussing the change on the Phoenix subreddit, fans of the mural mourned its loss.
User Mundane_Band_1377 wrote, "I just drove by it for the first time last week! Wanted to stop for a photo, but was in a hurry to get where I was going. Now I'm bummed I didn't."
User dotFuture commented, "I was silently screaming on Friday while I watched them (scraping) it off sitting at the red light."
Contributor Yodit32 may have said it best: "GAME OVER," they wrote.
Here are more photos of "Super Barrio Bros."
Luigi prepared to jump over some Goombas.
Jennifer Goldberg
Yoshi stared down a Banzai Bill on Van Buren Street.
Jennifer Goldberg
