The forest that came back: a life in La Goccia

My first memory of La Goccia is not very clear - I was very young then. A lot of time has passed, but I will never forget that day. People arrived with big machines. They cut down many trees to build buildings, train tracks and pipes. I remember the huge metal towers holding giant balls. That image stayed with me.

After that, everything changed. The air had a strong smell, like when a forest burns and even the rocks seem to catch fire. Everything around me was moving: trains came and went with a loud noise, workers shouted above the hissing pipes, and at night the sky turned orange, lit by flames from the tall chimneys.

At that time, my neighbourhood was not like anywhere else in Milan. These metal giants - they called them gasometers - stood above the few trees still standing and the rooftops covered in black dust. The green from before had turned to grey and the brown of rust. Some people said there was something in the ground that stopped life from growing. Still, I grew - a little lonely, because there weren’t others like me nearby. And in my loneliness, I watched everything change.

La Goccia was an industrial area. People in dirty uniforms and helmets worked hard all day, stopping only when a whistle blew. I didn’t understand what they were doing, but I could feel how busy it was. Something important was happening here - so many people and machines were always coming and going.

Then one day, it all stopped.

No more trains. No more people. Just silence.

The gas plant had closed. I didn’t know why, and I didn’t really mind. For a long time, the silence felt strange, like holding your breath for too long. The machines stayed in place, getting older and rusty. Some fell. Others remained, like big stones in the sea.

Then something surprising happened.

It started with small cracks in the concrete. A bit of grass here, a small bush there. Birds came back. So did the wind, blowing through the empty buildings, bringing fresher air. I wasn’t alone anymore. Others like me arrived - tall and thin, or wide and twisted. My neighbourhood, once a factory, was becoming a forest. A spontaneous forest.

Somehow, the poison in the soil didn’t stop plants, trees or lichens from growing. I was happy to meet my new neighbours. They didn’t speak, but I knew them by their smell, the sound of their leaves, the shape of their tops. It had been a long time since young life had lived here. But little by little, life came back - growing over the concrete, through the windows, and between the train tracks.

For years, we lived in peace. I was a happy tree. But we were always a little afraid. Would the machines and people return one day? Sometimes they did, but they didn’t stay long.

Then one day, we heard footsteps again. But they sounded different.

At first, we were worried. Would they destroy everything again? The wind carried old stories of people wanting to build new things, to clear the area, to start again. But these new footsteps were slower. Curious. Gentle.

They didn’t bring machines. They brought notebooks. Cameras. Questions. And they seemed amazed by what they saw.

They walked slowly, sometimes in groups, sometimes alone. They stopped often. I saw them pointing at mushrooms, taking pictures of bark, bending down to look at butterflies. They called this place La Goccia. They didn’t speak about it as an old factory, but as a “spontaneous forest”, a place of resistance, a place full of potential. Some even said it was “a world that begins where the pavement ends.”

They started meeting in one of the old Polytechnic buildings nearby. I could hear them talking - researchers, artists, architects, people from the city. They used words I didn’t understand, even with all my years: phytoremediation, interspecies governance, urban models, climate adaptation. Strange words. But I could feel that they were not here to take. They were here to learn.

Humans are strange. Hearing, seeing and touching is not enough for them. They want to understand everything. They dig in the ground to take soil. Sometimes they scratch my old bark, and it tickles. I’ve heard them say they are like doctors. I’ve heard them say the poison in the ground is slowly going away - thanks to us.

Not long ago, they came again, with an expert from far away. They spoke for hours. Their voices floated through the quiet forest.

“You need to open a different kind of view when you enter this place,” one of them said. “Until you do, you can’t really understand the meaning of what is here.”

They talked about letting more people in. They imagined turning my home into a living lab - a place to learn, to heal, to live together. They wanted people to understand the forest not only with their eyes, but also with their imagination.

They spoke about something called the European Urban Initiative - a programme that helps cities test bold ideas. La Goccia, they said, had been chosen for an Innovative Action. It would become a place to try out new ways of doing things - where urban change happens with environmental care, and where decisions are made not only for nature, but with nature.

I listened, still and silent. How could we trees take part in human decisions? We do not speak. But we do remember.

From deep in my roots, I remembered fire and silence. Soot and sprouts. And now, I welcomed something new: care.

La Goccia is no longer a forgotten corner of Milan. It is a place of imagination, where past and future come together. And where the forest no longer hides - it stands at the centre.

And I, the old tree at the heart of it all, am still standing - keeping the memory of the city in my rings.