An Apartment in the Indianapolis Ghetto

             One rule regulating where Conscientious Objectors could do their two years of Alternative Service, specified that the work must be at least 70 miles from the CO’s home.  This rule existed so that the CO’s life could not continue as normal.  I thought that rule was fair enough because those who had to enter the military, would certainly have their lives interrupted. With the highway system that existed at the time, Indianapolis was 175 miles away from my home in Evansville, Indiana.  

    Since I would be working in Indianapolis, I would have to start living there.  This was the first time in my life I was totally living on my own.  The job at Goodwill only paid me minimum wage, which at the time was $1.65 an hour, (other Goodwill employees, because they were handicapped, actually got a lot less than that) and since everyone only worked 30 hours a week, I quickly realized I would not have very much money to spend on a place to live.

    I found a cheap apartment in an older two story house on N. Pennsylvania in the Indianapolis’s inner city ghetto, that had been turned into apartments.  It did have a front porch with a porch swing, which convinced me it probably wouldn’t be too bad.

    The apartment I rented had originally been a living room situated in the front of what used to be a fine big family house.  The room now featured a saggy bed, a dresser, a chair and a small kitchen table.   Impressed by arty things, I was proud that the big front window sported a horizontal stained-glass strip across the top.

      In what had been a hallway when the house was built, had been converted into a combination kitchen/bathroom.  Unfortunately, there wasn't a door separating these two important facilities. In this narrow pre-hallway space sat a tiny gas stove and a sink at the kitchen end, and the bathroom at the other end.  The bathroom sported a toilet and immediately adjacent to it, a shower stall, and just enough floor space for a person to turn around. 

    Shortly after I moved in I began to realize that I was the only white guy in the house.  The rest of the apartments were occupied by single black guys.  They jokingly referred to me as “Sunshine”.  I am sure I was probably also the only person living in the house who didn't have a gun, but I never experienced any trouble, despite it being in a high crime area.  I did hear, after I had lived there for a while, that a body had been found in the abandoned house next door.  Needless to say, I didn’t venture out very much after dark.

        The photo at the top, shows the view from my apartment’s front window.  Below are two of my neighbors.

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