Cocorite

Cocorite
Coordinates: 10 ° 41 ′  N , 61 ° 33 ′  W Cocorite​ Cocorite on the map of Trinidad and Tobago
Basic data
Country	Trinidad and Tobago
region	TT-POS
Residents	6472  (2011)
Detailed data
City structure	3 communities
Waters	Gulf of Pariah
Time zone	UTC −4
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Cocorite is a city in Trinidad and Tobago . It is located in the northwest of the island of Trinidad and administratively belongs partly to the city of Port of Spain and partly to the Diego Martin region .

location

Cocorite is located in the northwest of Port of Spains on the border with the Diego Martin region, in which about 60% of the area of ​​the community lies and about 75% of the inhabitants of Cocorite live. The city is located directly on the Gulf of Paria . Cocorite is bordered to the west by Westmoorings, to the north by Four Roads and to the east by the Port of Spain district of St. James .

population

Cocorite is divided into the communities Cocorite Proper, Powder Magazine and Water Hole, with Cocorite Proper administratively forming a district of Port of Spain and Powder Magazine and Water Hole being administered by the Diego Martin region. 60% of the population are Afro-Trinidadians, while Indo-Trinidadians make up the largest proportion of the remaining 40%. The high proportion of single parents is striking: for every family with two parents there are six households with single parents. There is a notable Shiite community in Cocorite, the city is one of the strongholds of the (roughly) annual Hosay festival, during which life-size mausoleum models are pulled through the city and then handed over to the sea.

Community	Administrative affiliation	Residents
Cocorite Proper	Port of Spain	1705
Powder Magazine	Diego Martin	1423
Water hole	Diego Martin	3344
total		6472

history

The name "Cocorite" comes from Spanish and describes a palm of the genus Attalea (Attalea maripa), which grew in abundance during the times of Spanish colonial rule in the area of ​​today's Cocorite.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the area of ​​what is now Cocorite was densely forested and home to a plantation, Surveillance Estate. The area was populated noticeably by the first Chinese settlers who came to Trinidad as contract workers in 1806, proved unsuitable for work in the sugar cane fields and were assigned land around the surveillance estate. At the beginning of the 19th century, a regiment was stationed in Cocorite, which consisted mainly of slaves who were regularly called up for military exercises. The area was cleared from 1845 by the adventurer Conrad Frederick Stollmeyer from Ulm , who sold the wood as firewood to the army, grew coconut palms in the cleared area and with these first steps initiated the economic success of the Trinidadian Stollmeyer dynasty. In the 1840s, the colonial administration bought a former weapons arsenal in Cocorite and used it as an infirmary for lepers, making the place the leper colony of Port of Spain. The conditions in the infirmary were also notoriously bad because of the underqualified and underpaid staff, so that from 1868 onwards, French Dominican women were hired to care for lepers. In 1921 the lepers were brought to the northwestern island of Chacachacare and the leprosarium in Cocorite was burned down and leveled. The reason for the relocation was to convert the coastal strip into a base for flying boats . From 1929 this served as a station for an airmail service; the first mailbag to reach Trinidad by air was delivered by Charles Lindbergh .

In 1994 and 1996, cultural groups from Cocorite won the Prime Minister's Best Village Trophy Competition, in which groups are awarded that have made a contribution to the cultural strengthening and community feeling of the communities.

Today Cocorite is considered an economically disadvantaged district or suburb of Port of Spain. The city is listed by the US Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) as one of four crime hotspots in Trinidad that tourists should not visit at any time of the day.

Economy and Transport

Port of Spain Coming leads the Audrey Jeffers Highway, one of the main thoroughfares of Port of Spain, by Cocorite through and forks on the western outskirts to the west along the coast to Chaguaramas leading Western Main Road and north to Diego Martin leading Diego Martin Highway.

Facilities

Westshore Medical Center is a private hospital on the Gulf of Paria. Less than a hundred meters away is the Community Hospital of Seventh-Day Adventists, a denominational hospital. The city has a primary school; There are no further educational institutions. There is a community center with meeting, sports and adult education facilities. The West Wind Steel Orchestra, a steel band , and the Kilimanjaro School of Art and Culture, a non-profit educational project committed to the Trinidadian carnival, have their headquarters in Cocorite.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ News.co.tt: Cocorite to receive new two-storey Community Center ( Memento from July 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ NALIS.gov.tt: The Hosay Festival. Retrieved July 4, 2016 . 
3. ↑ Census 2011
4. ↑ Michael Anthony: Historical Dictionary of Trinidad and Tobago . Scarecrow Press, London 1997, ISBN 0-8108-3173-2 , pp. 144 .
5. ^ Caribbean History Archives: Chinese Immigration. Retrieved July 4, 2016 . 
6. ^ Gérard A. Besson & Bridget Brereton: The Book of Trinidad . Paria Publishing, Port of Spain 2010, ISBN 978-976-8054-36-4 , pp. 118 .
7. ^ Caribbean History Archives: Conrad Frederick Stollmeyer. Retrieved July 4, 2016 . 
8. ↑ Angelo Bissessar Singh: The Cocorite leprosarium -Part I . In: Trinidad Guardian . January 24, 2016.
9. ^ Caribbean History Archives: Early Aviation. Retrieved July 4, 2016 . 
10. ↑ Community.gov.tt: Winners from 1963 - 2015 ( Memento from July 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
11. ↑ OSAC.gov: Trinidad & Tobago 2015 Crime and Safety Report. Retrieved July 4, 2016 .