A Secret Street in Rome--bet you've never been there!

There aren't too many secret streets in Rome--those off-off-off-the beaten path streets that even the locals may not know.  We've found one, and none too soon, for it's about to disappear, or at the least take on a very different look.  As it turns out, some interesting folks--including a number of prominent artists--live on the street (more below).  But the reason we know about it is because some of the buildings are illegal. 

We're talking about via Paolo Caselli, some 200 yards of homes and businesses that could be said to connect the neighborhood of Ostiense with that of Testaccio.  One end of the street begins precisely across the street from the entrance to the non-Catholic cemetery, which backs up onto the Pyramid. One can drive in this way.  The other end, accessible on foot only, can be found at the end of a small parking lot, directly across the street from the 1930s-era post office on via Marmorata.

via Paolo Caselli, non-Catholic cemetery end

Around the bend

Although we had been to the non-Catholic cemetery many times, we had never "seen" this street--until, that is, it appeared in the newspapers--and not because it was a quaint, unrecognized tourist attraction, which it is not, except maybe for RST.  As reported in La Repubblica, via Paolo Caselli is a poster child for abusivismo--literally, abusiveness, but in this case illegally constructed buildings, those lacking proper construction permits and other authorizations--and probably not paying taxes.

Certainly has the look of a legit business

Indeed, the story as reported is more interesting than that.  At via Paolo Caselli #1 (the first building on the left as you enter from the cemetery side), not only has one of the units been illegally occupied for more than ten years, but the brother of the occupier heads the police unit charged with keeping

A series of buildings at #1

track of the ownership of Rome buildings.  Sounds  bad!  Moreover, it looks like the family has been profiting from illegal building for more than 50 years, dating back decades to when the father of the two brothers distributed mineral water from a warehouse on the street.

A business behind the gate--not sure what.

And there's another angle here that we found fascinating.  There are many other "abusivo" properties on the street, and most of them are occupied not by Mafia types or low-lifes or anything of the sort, but--guess what?--by artists!  Some or most or all of them will be "sgomberati" (evicted), and the buildings they occupy torn down, costs borne by the occupiers (we'll believe that when we see it). Several are sculptors, at least one a woman, an ancestor, so explains La Repubblica, of Naples gypsies. Another is Paolo Olmeda, owner of an historic foundry--apparently located on this street--in which Olmeda in 2006 made bronze reproductions of Amodeo Modigliani's 1910 Tête di Cartiatide. Then there's the German artist, Janine von Thungen, who made molds of the walls of the catacombs of San Callisto and created the work "Eternity," for a time in the Villa Foscari in Venice.

von Thungen's "Eternity"  

Besides these notable artists, it seems the local station of the fire department is also responsible for its own "abusivo" structure, an add-on building at the Marmorata end of the street.

Perhaps only the bocce ball facility is legal.  Who knows?

Bill

A Fire on the River: the Two Sides of Rome's Tevere

Looking south from Ponte della Scienza

Early in the morning of June 28, a fire broke out on the east bank of the Tevere, between the relatively new walking bridge, Ponte della Scienza, and Ponte Marconi, downstream.  The fire started in a riverbank encampment (illegal, of course) of some 15 Romanian families, living in some 25 sheds and shacks. Fire departments from Testaccio and EUR responded, but their ability to deal with the blaze was limited by the steep terrain of the riverbank at that point.  Fortunately, no one was injured or died in the fire, but the families were made homeless.

East bank fire, seen from the west bank

Couple enjoying the river and the gazometro from beneath
the Ponte della Scienza, west bank

We found the story sad but also instructive, especially about the complexity of the Tevere as it winds through the city.  On the one hand, about a mile from the site of the fire--beneath Piazza Trilussa--the west bank of the river has been transformed by William Kentridge into one of the century's monumental works of art.

And, on that west bank one can jog or ride a bike on a paved track near water level, about 50 feet below the top of the river bank, for miles, from Ponte della Scienza north.




On the other hand, as one goes south from Ponte Testaccio, people live amid the dense foliage on the east bank of the river.  On that side of the river, there is no regular path for walking or biking, just dirt paths leading down through the weeds into the encampments.

Encampments, east bank, photographed from west bank

Still, parts of the east bank below Ponte dell'Industria (the "Iron Bridge," between Ponte Testaccio and Ponte della Scienza) are accessible, reasonably safe, and compelling in their way.  One approaches from via del Porto Fluviale (a now trendy area for restaurants in Ostiense) takes a curving street--Riva Ostiense--past some new high-end apartments, and out onto a broad street that's full of colorful graffiti of the customary "lettering" style, dramatic equipment once used for loading and unloading ships on the river, the best view in the city of the largest of the gazometri, and the backs of once-active industrial buildings.  One can "exit" over the Ponte della Scienza, a few hundred yards downriver.

The safer part of Riva Ostiense

Farther down.  These structures--industrial detritus from an earlier era--can be seen in the fire photos, above.

Farther on, the area gets dicey and possibly dangerous.  We had assumed that Riva Ostiense was open on the southern end, and it should be, but it isn't, and so there is no through traffic either for autos or pedestrians. Moreover, at some point about a quarter mile downriver from the Scienza bridge, those living on the bank have closed off what remains of the road with green canvas.  So one has to retreat--and the word feels appropriate.

Path leading down to an encampment below

The light blue at the center of the photo is an encampment, likely destroyed in the fire.

Encampment, seen from Ponte della Scienza, looking north.  Probably escaped the fire. 

Rome in a nutshell, one might say.  A nice path for jogging and biking on one side, people living in squalor and poverty on the other, a few hundreds yards from new luxury apartments.  And Riva Ostiense, open to Ponte della Scienza, beckoning to those with just a little sense of adventure, but beyond that, abandonment and no-man's-land, no effort at development or maintenance.

Bill

La Dolce Vita gets a little less sweet - the City closes down some via Veneto outdoor cafes.

"Alex," part of the Hotel Alexandra, on via Veneto near Piazza Barberini, advertises you can "live the 'Dolce Vita' life"

The Dolce Vita life on via Veneto is getting tough for some of these "outdoor" restaurants.  The City recently cracked down on what it termed "abusivo" or illegal cafes.  The Trevi police (yes, as in the Trevi Fountain) taped up some of the outdoor spaces. We couldn't figure out why some were still open and some - very obviously - were not.  Apparently those closed by the city had not obtained the proper permits to build and run their enterprises on the sidewalk, which most of them do.

The photo below is of one of the closed-down outside spaces on the "upper" part of via Veneto, nearer Corso d'Italia.  The 21st- century saga of this restaurant is a sad tale.  The cafe' to which the outdoor space belongs is Cafe' de Paris, the inspiration for Fellini's 1960 film.  Cafe' de Paris was supposedly run by mafia; the anti-mafia task force closed it down in 2009 and the court case is coming to fruition now.  In 2011 the government reopened the cafe'.  But apparently the mafia had the last word - the cafe' was destroyed by arson in 2014 and hasn't reopened.  The outside space has been inhabited since then, however.  It looks like a cell phone company set up shop there - perhaps without any permits at all.  Ah, Roma.

The restaurateurs - at least the true restauraeurs, not the cell phone companies -  have cried "foul" and stated the city should have at least negotiated with them.  And perhaps it will.  To be continued.

 Dianne

Idroscalo: An unauthorized, self-built Rome community

It's not often we're "scooped" by La Repubblica, but that was the feeling I had this morning (May 24, 2015) when I opened the paper to find an entire page devoted to Idroscalo, a community of some 500 homes and 2,000 people located north of the seaside town of Ostia, about 20 miles from Rome, on a spit of land between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the mouth of the Tiber River (the part known to residents as the Fiumara Grande).  The occasion for La Repubblica's interest is a May 26 technical "tavolo"--a bunch of experts getting together--"finalmente," as the newspaper put it, to deal with the case of Idroscalo.  Don't hold your breath.

RST was in Idroscalo about 10 days ago.  This was our second, and more informed visit.  The first time we were seeking the place where Pier Paolo Pasolini was murdered in 1975.  We came upon Idroscalo and felt we had hit a dead end.  This time, we had read Ferruccio Trabalzi's superb essay on the community in the collection Global Rome--we'll draw on it extensively here--and couldn't resist seeing the place with our own eyes.  Still, we had concerns.  Idroscalo is an unauthorized, illegal, and self-built community --according to Trabalzi, the "last surviving self-built small borghetto (illegally constructed neighborhood)" in all of Rome.  Its residents are poor and rightfully suspicious of strangers, especially those taking photographs, for those strangers are more likely than not to be the advance

In early 2011, there were 100 houses on this part of Idroscalo.  The
masts of the 2000 ships in the upscale marina are in the distance.

guard of yet another effort at eviction and demolition.

The last such event took place on March 8, 2011, when residents awoke to the presence of some 200 riot police and 4 bulldozers, which then proceeded to demolish about 100 homes along the seashore.  The area is subject to frequent flooding from the sea and, especially, the Tevere, and it's likely that the action was "justified" by the authorities as a measure necessary to the safety of the inhabitants. Protests by Idroscalo residents halted the demolitions.



Trabalzi describes Idroscalo as a

The main "square".  The town's coffee bar, complete with
umbrellas.  Bus service at right.  

 "social and cultural desert", save for a small chapel:  "no shops, no community center, no library, no piazza, no gardens or city offices, let alone any pharmacies or doctors."  That's mostly true.  But the entrance to the town has the feel of a piazza (there is turnaround bus service there - the head - or end - of the line), albeit one without amenities such as a fountain, benches, or trees.

Functioning restaurant, behind the bar

There's a restaurant just off the piazza--of the
sort middle-class Romans frequent on Sunday afternoons--and one of the town's two bars is on the piazza.  On the occasion of our mid-morning visit, the bar was functioning, as Rome bars do, as an informal social center, men sitting at tables and teen-age girls and boys in bathing suits circling on bicycles.

Our first act was to have a coffee at that bar. Rather than walking through the piazza, we wanted to announce ourselves, in something of an act of reassurance - for them, but also for us. We hoped they'd get the message: that we were Americans, that we weren't from the government, that whatever photos we took weren't going to hurt them, that we were self-confidently engaged in our own activity.  Still, we were never entirely comfortable while in the town.  The coffee was served in glass cups.



For most of an hour we walked the town, up one "street" and down another, along the area near the sea where the bulldozers of 2011 had left the land barren.  One man looked suspiciously at us as we walked by his home, yet said nothing.

Dogs, visible, center left, lying down, would make
us turn back a few yards later.

In the very center of the community--not a person in sight--we were forced to retreat by 3 barking dogs that ran at us--and then stopped as we turned. To avoid being too obvious, many of the photographs were taken at waist level or from long distance.

Squalor, one could say, with satellite TV

La Repubblica's story for the most part depicts the residents of Idroscalo as victims.  In the words of the headline:  "Favelas Idroscalo/vita da miserabili/nelle case di calce/senz'acqua né luce" (Idroscalo ghetto/living miserable lives in houses of lime, without water or electric light).  As even the newspaper recognizes, that's a bit overstated.  Yes, the roads are of packed earth, there is no "proper" sewage system (Trabalzi), most of the houses would reasonably be described as substandard, and--on the grounds that the community is illegal--there is no garbage collection within the town, though bins are not far away on the road leading to Ostia, whose middle class and upscale apartment buildings are only a few kilometers away.  As for water, over the years residents have developed an informal system that collects water from three
drinking fountains, deposits it in tanks, and uses pumps driven by electricity to move the water to rooftops and distribute it from there to residents.  And, obviously, there is electricity.  Most residents are on the regular ACEA (the water and power company) city grid.  Before 1977, hookups with ACEA were the norm, but laws passed then eliminated the arrangement, and homes built after 1977 are off the grid. According to La Repubblica, Idroscalo collectively owes ACEA 71,000 Euro. Cooking is by gas cylinders (we noticed some large ones).  Each year households are fined 2000 Euro for illegally occupying the public domain.

More middle class.

If life is so bad in Idroscalo, why doesn't everyone leave?  That's Trabalzi's question, and it's a good one.  One answer is that over the years--and some have lived there decades--residents have invested most of what they have in their homes, such as they are.  Another is that they rightly fear that the government's promises of relocation to better housing isn't a dependable one, raising the specter of homelessness and, if it were, that they'd find themselves in some version of the infamous Corviale, a kilometer-long concrete block 1970s-era disaster.  In addition, it seems clear that many Idroscalians enjoy living there.  "All the residents," Trabalzi claims, "agree on one point...that they live in a beautiful place" of gorgeous sunsets, with populations of dolphins and white herons, swans and swallows--and the smell of the sea.

Not so affluent.  

The Idroscalo that exists today had its origins in the early 1960s, when fishermen from Rome neighborhoods built small, and of course illegal, huts to use in the summer and the occasional weekend.  When it became clear that the authorities tolerated the huts, they were expanded and made more permanent. Idroscalo became a year-round community in the 1970s, largely out of necessity, when a city-wide crisis of affordable, legal housing led thousands of poor Romans to take up illegal, self-made residence along via  Casilina, via Boccea, via Prenestina, Mandrione--and Idroscalo. According to Trabalzi, authorities have here and there pursued a policy of "benign neglect" in places like Idroscalo, in part because the elimination of illegal communities would require the construction of low-income housing.

But that policy--a combination of fines, raids, threats, neglect and tolerance of self-made, illegal communities--may be coming to an end.  Residents of similar communities in Valle Aurelia, Casilino, Mandrione and elsewhere have experienced relocation to high-rise housing in places like Laurentino 38.  In 2000, private investors received permission to build a 300-boat marina within a

Behind the red timbers is a second bar, serving sandwiches, gelato, and more.  The marina is back right.  

hundred meters of Idroscalo's "piazza," promising employment to Idroscalo residents (it didn't happen); the marina was expanded in 2008.  But for the protests, all of Idroscalo might have been bulldozed in 2011.  According to Trabalzi, there is talk of turning the area into a "nature park" and, more threatening still, Idroscalo has attracted interest from corporations and politicians as a possible new center of tourism, complete with elaborate hotels and other amenities to complement the marina.
That may be what Tuesday's "tavolo" is all about.  

Bill

This photo closely resembles La Repubblica's  "lead" picture, pink chairs and all.  Several efforts at comfort here:
the umbrella, a bench, chairs, flowers, a rock garden--and a madonella.