Seduction at The Hotel Northampton

If you’ve read my Substack on New York City, you know I worked as an elevator operator for a luxury co-op in Manhattan. That stellar career didn’t just materialize from thin air. I had vast experience and a resume to flaunt it. I’d previously worked as an elevator operator at the Hotel Northampton in that little Massachusetts town that hosted Smith College.

At the time, I was in my third year at Hampshire College, located ten miles east of the hotel and a few miles south of Amherst. My parents were generous enough to pay for my tuition, but not so forthcoming when it came to an allowance for beer, drugs, and take-out food. So, I got a job. I’d previously worked as a dishwasher at a restaurant in Amherst that specialized in quiche smothered in an assortment of gloopy sauces. I had no interest in going back to that smelly job. I canvased other hospitality spots in Northampton and hit on this position. Originally, I was hired as a weekend bellhop to carry luggage for tour groups catering to elderly widows on their way to New Hampshire to see the leaves turn that kaleidoscope of fall colors. I was just such a good worker that I earned a promotion. Elevator Operator.

The Hotel Northampton was built in 1927 with a colonial revival theme. When I was there, it really hadn’t changed much in those fifty-plus years. The place was filled with antique bric-a-brac, Chippendale-inspired lobby furniture, and Currier and Ives prints. The elevator was original with a latticed steel cage that closed manually, and a handle-thingy you pushed and pulled to go up or down. It took some getting used to but within a couple weeks, I was a pro, nailing each floor first try. I worked most evenings, and once the fall leaves hoopla was over, the hotel was creepy quiet. I mostly hung out in the lobby with my new friends—another employee who was a graduate theology student at UMass and a hotel resident, the only resident, named Elwood Buell Allen.

Elwood Buell Allen was one of those real-life characters that surpasses any literary imagination I might have. He was a smallish man then in his sixties though looked much older. What little hair still left on his scalp sprouted from dry, flaky skin, leaving a sprinkling of dandruff on his ubiquitous black suit coat. He always wore a white shirt and dark tie. His eyeglasses were the granny kind, and his opened lips revealed just two teeth left in his front upper gum. He walked with a limp and a dangling, almost useless arm, the aftereffects of childhood polio. He loved to sit in the lobby with us and chat away the evening, talking about our pasts and telling stories. It’s what guys do.

Ellwood was interesting. First off, he was the living leading authority on the life and times of our 30^th President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge. I can’t tell you what drove him to this odd fascination. From what I know, Coolidge was an unremarkable president, referred to as “Silent Cal,” soft-spoken, and believed in a hands-off government approach. Though popular, he called it quits after one term in office. This in stark contrast to our current president who could be referred to as “Deafening Don” and might try to stay in office until that inevitable coronary. Regardless, Coolidge was Elwood’s obsession, and his small hotel bedroom was a museum filled with memorabilia: campaign posters and buttons, framed letters, busts, original photos, and knick-knacks with his image. He also owned a Coolidge walking cane, a Homberg hat, and an Indian headdress he famously wore for a photo on the White House lawn. Elwood initially moved to Northampton because of Calvin Coolidge’s long association with the town. Coolidge had spent nights at the hotel and consumed many dinners in its Wiggins Tavern.

Elwood had another obsession—feet. He had a foot fetish that mostly revolved around those of young men. It was a little strange hanging out in the lobby of this historic hotel as Elwood discussed in detail his fetish. In the summer he loved to occupy a bench at the local city park while young men trapesed around in bare feet or flip-flops, playing hacky sack or tossing a Frisbee. He described encounters with other men with similar obsessions, one scatological where Elwood slipped his foot into a boot filled with the other man’s fresh excrement. Then, eventually, his obsession began to center on me. Each night I’d take Elwood up in the elevator to his floor, and each night he’d try to sweet-talk me into taking off my shoes.

This brings up a non-intuitive reaction.

I recently finished a book by Eric Larson, Demon of Unrest, about the events leading up to the Civil War. Among a host of details of how the southern aristocracy lived and behaved, one detail shed insight into my reaction to Elwood’s beseeching. There was a well-known staircase in one of the plantation mansions called “the ankle walk.” Apparently, boys used to hide below this staircase and watch as the women hiked up their skirts and petticoats so they wouldn’t trip while making the climb. What turned these boys on was getting a good eyeful of the women’s ankles. I guess what this might say concerning Elwood and his passion for feet, is that eroticism is fungible—boobs can be replaced by ankles, and, well, a nice slender foot can accomplish what a penis might for others.

Which brings me back to those elevator rides. I began to feel uncomfortable taking him up and listening to his constant imploring to see my bare feet. What might have been a simple response to just take off my shoes and socks and show Elwood—I’d certainly walked around barefoot unselfconsciously in the past—became an act like pulling down my pants to show him my junk. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. The fact that Elwood was gay and I was straight was for sure a mitigating factor; if Elwood was an Elsie, I’d willingly produce an unsheathed foot. Anyway, I never did show him. And just so you know, they are long, slender, and slightly fantastic.

I came close. I continued working at the hotel through my senior year at Hampshire. Towards summer I gave notice and a few weeks later walked into the hotel lobby to get my final paycheck. Ellwood was there. The weather had turned warm and I wore a T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. I walked up to him. Ellwood couldn’t keep his eyes off my feet, and once close, he gave a mischievous laugh, his hands out and lowered as though feeling the heat from my toes. He looked like a kid who’d just ordered a cherry-dipped cone. I gave Elwood a final goodbye embrace.

After graduation, I left for Manhattan, moving up in the world to secure a very high-profile job as an elevator operator at the swanky 860-870 United Nations Plaza. It was a long and illustrious career that ended in Los Angeles where I worked as a desk clerk for a luxury condo in Beverly Hills. Sure, I met celebrities.

I never returned to Northampton.

What happened to Ellwood Buell Allen? Years ago, I found his obituary. There was no mention of the Calvin Coolidge collection or that other fetishistic detail. Well, dust to dust. But the Hotel Northampton still stands, and you can enjoy its hospitality on your way to see New Hampshire’s fall spectacle. If you go, let me know if that old elevator is still there (I doubt it).