I moved in with my now-partner and father-of-my-child 5 years ago this Valentine's day, sealing my fate as an "Americana a Palermo." While with each passing new year along with the usual meditations and resolutions I think about my place here in this strange metamorphic city, this year is especially poignant because we have, rather violently, moved out of our love-nest to the "other" Palermo outside the historic center.
Via Sciuti is the realm of the bourgeoisie, who, according to Roberto Alajmo, noted local journalist, historian and the writer of Palermo รจ un Cipolla, abandoned Palermo's center in the 50's because they wished for rolling shutters instead of blinds. All I had known about this side of Palermo was that it was where the so-called "sack of Palermo" took place in the 50's. If you look at Wikipedia's (if not reliable for its factual accuracy, a perfect gauge of what is widely believed to be true) explanation of the event, it is decidedly negative:
Between 1951 and 1961 the population of Palermo had risen by 100,000, caused by a rapid urbanisation of Sicily after World War II as land reform and mechanisation of agriculture created a massive peasant exodus and rural landlords moved their investment into urban real estate. This led to an unregulated and undercapitalised construction boom from the 1950s through the mid 1980s that was characterised by an aggressive involvement of mafiosi in real estate speculation and construction. The years 1957 to 1963 were the high point in private construction, followed in the 1970s and 1980s by a greater emphasis on public works. From a citizenry of 503,000 in 1951, Palermo grew to 709,000 in 1981, an increase of 41 percent.
More serious than the wartime destruction of the old city was the political decision to turn away from its restoration in favour of building a “new Palermo”, at first concentrated at the northern end, beyond the Art Nouveau neighbourhood of 19th century expansion. Subsequently in other zones to the west and the south spreading over, and obliterating, the Conca d'Oro orchards, villas, and hamlets, accelerating the cementification of what formerly was green.
Real estate developers ran wild, pushing the centre of the city out along Viale della Liberta toward the new airport at Punta Raisi. With hastily drafted zoning variances or in wanton violation of the law, builders tore down countless Art Deco palaces and asphalted many of the city's finest parks, transforming one of the most beautiful cities in Europe into a thick, unsightly forest of cement condominia. One of the most important buildings of the great Sicilian architect, Enesto Basile, was razed to the ground in the middle of the night, hours before it would have come under protection of the historic preservation laws.
In fact, there is a distinct divide between the two sides of town, with each one turning up there nose at the other. Some of our more "alternative" friends were shocked and dismayed to here of our move, and took it as a sign of moral corruption. According to them, this side of Palermo is populated by icy-hearted consumerists that prefer drab concrete condos to history in the form of the 18th and 19th century villas that were torn down, people that would turn and look away if you were hurt or even if you asked for the time. But really, I feel like more people smile and wave to me here while I was routinely the victim of catcalls, scams, and shoving pedestrians in the city center. I guess "friendliness" is really a difference of opinion.
The prejudice goes both ways, however. My partner was nearly dispossessed by his family when he moved to the "wrong side of the tracks" and they took it as a given that if he had not already started shooting heroin or joined a gypsy band, he would soon.
Although the historic center is beautiful in a spectral way, with its ornate baroque palaces still showing blast holes and blackened facades from World War II, nobody can deny that life here is more comfortable and convenient. This is a part of the city built at the height of the automobile, as my husband said, built to glorify it. The streets are wide, with ample parking spaces and appropriate space is given to cars and pedestrians alike. Viale Lazio is always backed up with an unreasonable traffic, even in mid-siesta when all other streets are barren. And the one-way streets are maddening. To go and pick up Flora in the car we need to literally drive a spiral, zeroing in on the nursery-school as if we were creeping up on a prey.
But, coming from Los Angeles, I am quite used to this kind of madness, as long as the space it is played out in is dilated. I wonder if this is another one of the reasons why I find myself quite at home here...the 50's architecture, Mediterranean climate and rampant traffic all remind me of my birthplace. This piece of via Sciuti could really be a segment of Colorado Blvd. I swore that I would never live in Los Angeles again or any other city that reminded me of it but everybody knows that even the most rampant atheist will suddenly return to the church (if they were raised religious) once they have children. Something happens to us when we reproduce, we transform into our parents.
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