The former Ramey Air Force Base occupies a substantial headland north of Aguadilla and has had an interesting second life since closing in 1973. The infrastructure the US military built — streets, housing, hangars, an 11,000-foot runway — was simply too large to demolish or ignore, so the site evolved into a mixed-use community. Today it contains residential neighbourhoods, a golf course, a university campus, commercial areas, and Rafael Hernández Airport, which uses the original military runway.
The Cold War geography is still legible if you know what you are looking at. The aircraft hangars are enormous, designed to shelter strategic bombers, and several remain standing along the old flight line. The runway is operational and long enough to land any aircraft in service. Driving through the former base roads gives an odd sense of a parallel world — American suburban planning standards dropped onto a Caribbean landscape, now slowly greening over and adapting to civilian life. The golf course at the edge of the cliffs has sea views that justify the greens fee on their own.