Doctors Hospital

Dear Diary:

It was 1965, and I was expecting my second child. My doctor said we would be using Doctors Hospital for the delivery. I was not familiar with it, but friends told me that it was well known as a place where the rich and famous went and that it was somewhere on East End Avenue near the East River.

On the night before my due date, my husband and I left our daughter with my mother and went to a late movie in Queens. Around midnight, I began to feel some pains. We left the movie, drove to my mother’s home to pick up my suitcase and then set off over the bridge to Manhattan.

“Where again is the hospital?” my husband asked.

“It’s somewhere near the East River on East End Avenue,” I said. “So make the first right leaving the bridge.”

Making our way to East End Avenue, we began to look frantically for something resembling a hospital. My labor pains were getting stronger, and my husband was starting to panic.