Via Positanesi d’America: The Street That Tells the Truth About Positano

Via Positanesi d’America: The Street That Tells the Truth About Positano

The version of Positano that circulates in travel media — hotel terraces over the sea, ceramic staircases, the specific shade of bougainvillea that photographs best in afternoon light — is real. I’ve photographed it many times. I understand its appeal. It’s one of the most visually consistent places I’ve worked in, which is either a compliment or an observation about how thoroughly the tourist economy has curated the available surfaces.

Via Positanesi d’America is not curated. It’s a narrow staircase street connecting the upper village to the lower harbour, named after the people who left Positano in the late 19th and early 20th centuries because the fishing was uncertain, the land was almost uncultivable, and there was no other option. They went to New York, New Jersey, Connecticut. Some came back. Some sent money. Some did neither. The street is named after all of them.

What the Name Actually Means

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Positano was poor in the way that coastal southern Italian villages were poor — genuinely, not picturesque-poor. The fishing economy was volatile. There was no road connecting the village to the outside world until 1932. The only route in or out was by sea, which meant that when things went wrong, they went wrong in an isolated, enclosed way.

Mass emigration from Positano to the United States followed the same pattern as emigration from across the Mezzogiorno: young men first, then families, then the remittance economy that transformed the village’s built environment over decades. The houses that now function as boutique hotels were in many cases built or repaired with money sent from addresses in Brooklyn and Newark. The history and the present luxury version of Positano exist in the same buildings simultaneously.

Walking the Street

Via Positanesi d’America is steep, narrow, and partially shaded by the buildings on either side. The walls are old and irregular — this is construction from before planning considerations, built for practical use rather than visual effect. You can see the joints and repairs and the variations in stone that accumulate over centuries of incremental maintenance.

The light in this street at midday is almost entirely indirect — reflected from pale walls, filtered through the gap above. This makes it excellent for photography when the open squares and beaches are washed out by direct overhead sun. The colours in the shade are more saturated than you’d expect: the paint on the walls, the climbing plants, the blue glimpse of sea visible at the bottom of the descent. It’s a five-minute walk. I’ve spent forty-five minutes on it.

How to Find It

From the main village square, descend toward the harbour — Via Positanesi d’America branches off one of the descending routes, marked by a street sign that is easy to miss if you’re not looking for it. The bottom connects to the harbour area. The top connects to the road through the village. There are no cafés on it, no ceramic shops, no information boards. Just the street, the walls, and the name that carries everything it carries.