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my father's retirement from the Navy and his subsequent employment with
the then Panama Canal Company, we moved into PCC Coco Solo. First
it was to a two-bedroom unit and two or three years later, to a three-bedroom
unit. Where one lived was frequently referred to as either "the two-bedrooms"
or the "three-bedrooms" when speaking to someone else, rather than the
street one lived on. I suppose that's because not everyone knew the
names of the streets although they could physically get around just fine.
Since the 2-bedroom and 3-bedroom units were located in their own sections,
the description narrowed down the area in which one lived. Coco Solo
was not a townsite with winding roads or dozens of streets - in fact, the
layout was fairly simple and there was very little chance of getting lost
in it. In retrospect, Coco Solo really wasn't that large either.
At one time, the whole land area belonged to the U.S. Navy but in 1957, the Navy had scaled down operations to the point where they did not need all of it anymore. The Pan Canal Company then "acquired 229 acres of land" in addition to 285 living quarters from the Navy in which to place PCC employees and their families. I know that somewhere among my late parents' packed boxes in storage, there are photos taken of Coco Solo in its better days. Perhaps one day I will get around to digging them out, scanning them, and putting them up here, but for now, these recent ones taken in May 2004 will have to do. Families started retiring and leaving the Canal Zone once the new treaty was finalized by the U.S. and Panama. The closer it got to 1999, the more families were leaving. Families that stayed moved or were moved elsewhere and the Coco Solo residential area for PCC employees was left abandoned. Panama once claimed it would revitalized this housing as modest rental apartments for her citizens, but it never was. In time, between the vandals and the squatters, is has now become a run-down, shabby ghost town. It's still inhabited by squatters scattered here and there although there are no utilities. Recently,
my friend and correspondent in Panama, Nina, and a friend of hers, Art,
again went exploring on the Atlantic Side
"It was around 5 p.m. & we were headed back towards 4 Corners & then to the Pacific Side, so the sun was not high & there were lots of shadows. The story I get on this is that this whole area is owned by the Free Zone & these people are squatters who've been told to move since the Free Zone people want to raze the housing for additional container storage space. The very last picture shows where they've started to tear down some of them (with the roofs off & the building gutted). But the ones on the road (still inside the fence) are occupied. The people have told the Free Zone they'll get out when someone (Free Zone, government of Panama) provides something equal to what they have --- solid construction concrete, fairly decent roofs, spacious rooms. Huh???? Their electrical & water connections have been shut off so I have no idea what they're doing for basic things like drinking water or toilets. The Free Zone & the government of Colon don't want the grief the newspapers will give them for physically evicting these people, so right now everything is at a halt. I suspect if some heavy equipment starts in there to lift off the roof, for example, some people-activity would take place. These are all pictures of housing w/o people. I don't take pictures of people in misery." ALL of the photographs on this page and their larger linked photos are personal property and cannot be reproduced, copied, or obtained in any manner without requesting and being authorized to do do by the owner of the photos and the owner of this website. Photos copyrighted ©NBK
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