Internship Part 2

Internship in year 2 alot was happening in my first few months of internship that was not strictly medical. We had a baby due in September and we were stuck in a rented room with privileges, that meant we could use the kitchen and bathroom; period! We had no access to the rest of the house, yet Mrs. Williams, a widow, regularly helped herself to our food. I was paying her $35 a month and what is really amazing she had two sons who were physicians and you would think she would have some empathy for a young struggling couple. I knew I had to find another place soon, but since I had to take my wife back to Indianapolis where she wanted to be delivered by Frank Lloyd, I figured I would find a place while she stayed with her parents post partum. The baby was due around the third week in Sept so I got coverage and did a quick one day turn around trip on the 1st to drop her off. As luck would have it on Sept 20 she was in labor and I had to go right back. Robbie, my first born, was delivered on the 21st of Sept and after seeing him I had to get right back to the hospital. Luckily, Al Holliday an IU classmate, was leaving an apartment in the Pruitt-Igoe projects. So I put in an application which I certainly qualified for based on income. The rent was $45/ month for a two bedroom unit and that included all utilities. On the 31 of October, I left Mrs. Williams room in the dead of night never to see her again.
The Pruitt- Igoe projects were a story in themselves, an experiment in urban housing that crammed low income black people into 33 fourteen story buildings as a social experiment. They had built 10 other units called Vaughn for whites, but they never moved in so these also became black. In fact, it became a high rise high density village, with concrete playgrounds and no green space or conveniences such as grocery or drug stores. These coffin like buildings were ovens in the St. Louis stifling summers where heat radiated off the buildings even a 5 AM the next morning. It’s no wonder that people sat out doors and children ran around well past midnight trying to beat the heat. And the heat and noise sans sleep provoked constant violence. There were shootings, stabbings, kids being thrown off roofs, babies being dumped down incinerator chutes, and police dogs constantly patrolling the buildings day and night.
The occupants (kids ) would bait the dogs to run up the stairwells and then turn the fire hoses on them and escape by going across a connecting service corridor.
I lived in these projects, 2311 Dickson St., the entire 5 years I was at the “G’s” and only had my car radio stolen. Everyone knew me as ‘Doc” and I would give out sample medicines also everybody at some point had to go to the “G’s” so I was looked on as their link to medical care. I could always catch a free ride in a gypsy cab if my car wasn’t running sometimes taking me out of my way but eventually getting me there.
In these buildings resided 13,000 occupants, a small city without serviceable elevators, incinerators or lighted stairwells also non working laundry appliances and trash filled halls. But we coped and on weekends music, laughter and liquor filling the air; everybody vented their frustration occasionally punctuated by gun shots. My living there was a priceless sample of urban survival.
When I finished my residency and moved on there was a sense of sadness that I could leave and move up in my life but my neighbors (some good friends) were doomed to remain in this high rise ghetto.