Blue-collar workers and mobsters used to live side by side in Isola, or Island, the Milanese neighborhood that once felt removed from the city, separated by rail tracks and river boundaries. Just north of Milan's historical center, the area today is seen by locals as radical chic and is home to Google's Italian headquarters.
Its mishmash of 19th-century Art Nouveau buildings with wrought-iron balconies next to high-rise towers, built for Expo 2015, the six-month-long world's fair hosted by Milan, is the perfect expression of the alternative vibe that now defines Isola.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/
