Recently the photographer Rose Marie Cromwell went to Panama City to photograph vendors, shoppers and people passing time on Avenida Central, a busy street near Panama old town, Casco Viejo.
For years, Avenida Central has been a place for the average resident to run errands. Pausing there to observe the place and its people, you really get an idea of the diversity of cultures in Panama, said Ms. Cromwell, who lived in Panama City for a few years beginning in 2006 and returns regularly. But I don’t know if you’d see it in most guidebooks.
Ms. Cromwell did her own shopping there. It is, she said, a place to find everything you need — even a haircut on the side of the road — for a good price.
Yet in the years since she has lived full-time in Panama, the street has gentrified in the most extreme way,she said. Today a wandering visitor will find upscale hotels, nightclubs and coffee shops a short walk away.