What mob allegations turn romes sweet life sour?
“In all Europe there is no street quite so lively, quite so cosmopolitan or quite so zany as Rome’s Via Venetos” So began a 1959 TIME story trumpeting CafÉ de Paris as the new must-see-and-be-seen spot on the then already famous leafy boulevard. Fifty years later, the sidewalk locale is as luxurious as ever (though not quite as lively), attracting both well-heeled Italians and tourists looking for a hint of the breezy, post-War sweet life celebrated in Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, in which the cafÉ was a key location. On Wednesday, CafÉ de Paris was back in the spotlight for different reasons: Even as sharply dressed customers and summer travelers in shorts sipped cappuccino, police seized the premises on suspicion that it had fallen into the hands of the increasingly powerful Calabrian mob.
