Corso Umberto I

Corso Umberto I, Naples's ruler-straight boulevard from the train station to the sea, grew out of a promise mayor Nicola Amore made after a cholera epidemic killed about eight thousand people in the tangled alleys of the old quarters in 1884. The guide follows Amore, a former police chief turned lawyer, as he pushes through a law to demolish the worst of the slums, cutting the boulevard Neapolitans nicknamed the Rettifilo, the straight line. It traces the mounting cost overruns and displaced families the writer Matilde Serao documented in her book The Belly of Naples. Look past the grand arcaded facades to the side streets, where an older Naples still survives.