The first railway station in Italy, the Bayard, is close to rebirth. The news is terrifying because that place, which marked the history of transport in Italy, is currently reduced to a crumbling ruin on which, over the years, even the “pirates” of the spaces who invaded it and left partially possessed.
The news of the turning point towards redevelopment was spread by the municipality of Naples with a statement explaining that «the areas of the Napoli Bayard station were delivered today for the start of the safety works of the complex, following which the definitive functional recovery works of the area can be carried out». There are no mentions of the activities that will be carried out, also because the Railways will also carry out the works through “FS Sistemi Urbani”, the lead company of the Urban Center of the FS Group. «The intervention – it is written in the official note – is the result of the dialogue between all the actors involved after the handover to the Municipality of the area between Corso Garibaldi, via Enrico Cosenz and via S. Maria delle Grazie in Loreto, and follows up the Memorandum of Understanding signed in December 2023 between the Municipality of Naples, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Superintendency and FS Sistemi Urbani. The agreement allowed the reorganization of the properties and surrounding areas with maximum protection of the city’s cultural heritage.”
The property
In reality, the question of ownership was at the center of a long and embarrassing search. When the Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation into the devastation of that historic station on 8 February 2023, it was necessary to identify the owners of those places. The only trace recovered from Palazzo San Giacomo was a note dated 12 September 1977 which explains that the Municipality “has expressed its intention to acquire” the station area, including the external grounds.
At the time the area was passed to the Municipality but there is no trace of the transfer deed. In the meantime, the city administrators in those places have built roads and schools, and have also placed a municipal headquarters in the building adjacent to the station. To resolve the issue, after having searched in vain for the sales documents, the Railways and the Municipality met and decided to find an agreement: the Municipality bought the areas where it built roads and schools for two million; the ruins of the station and the building where it was located remain at the railways Municipality.
Jobs
At present the only operations planned concern safety measures. There are still no official plans regarding the refunctionalization and future intended uses even though, for years, the Railways have been explaining that they want to recover that historic station to transform it and assign it to a functional use for citizens.
The acceleration of the recovery issue was given precisely by the investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office which at the beginning of 2023 sent the Carabinieri of the Heritage Protection Unit, to seize the building inaugurated in 1834 and the surrounding areas. The initiative came at the end of an investigation coordinated by the intersectional group for the criminal protection of cultural heritage, coordinated by the deputy prosecutor Pierpaolo Filippelli. The crimes hypothesized were many, and all dramatic: from “damage to the national archaeological, historical or artistic heritage” to “destruction, dispersion, deterioration, disfigurement, soiling and illicit use of cultural assets”, from “omission of work in buildings that threaten ruin” to the “invasion of land and buildings” caused by a neighboring garage which had, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, invaded the areas of the old station.
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