Administrator Held Captive

Next time, Associate Director of the Danforth Center Sue A. Lonoff will take the stairs, thank you.

For 20 minutes Saturday, Lonoff encountered the quirks of aged Widener Library in person, as she remained trapped in a powerless east side elevator waiting for library staff and Cambridge Fire officials to rescue her.

Appropriately enough, Lonoff, who was at Widener researching an upcoming anthology, spent the time reading, she said.

At 4:30 p.m., Lonoff stepped into the fourth floor Widener east elevator but found her expectations of arriving at floor C premature when the elevator ground to a halt and its console lights switched off.

"I got tired of walking and decided to take the elevator," she said later.

Lonoff, unable to restart the elevator, pressed an emergency bell several times then yelled for help. In response, several voices told Lonoff to wait in between floor B and C while they brought assistance, she said.

"I just stayed in my little cage reading a book," said Lonoff.

Her would-be rescuers, mostly passers-by and circulation desk staffers, scrambled but failed to locate a maintenance closet key, which could also unlock the elevator doors, Lonoff said. A key was finally located, but not before a bystander called the Cambridge Fire Department.

Half a dozen firefighters took control of the rescue, opening the outer door to the shaft, shutting off power and telling Lonoff to open the inner door of the elevator and climb down.

Lonoff succeeded in opening the door by turning a hand-operated mechanism, then slipped out the chamber and descended the remaining three-and-a-half feet to the C level floor assisted by a firefighter "who very gallantly lent me his shoulder."

Of the dozen or so people who had gathered to watch the rescue, everyone was "very, very decent to me," Lonoff said.

Larsen Librarian of Harvard College Yen-Tsai Feng could not be reached for comment, but a student at the Widener circulation desk said that elevator-related breakdowns "happen sometimes, but not too frequently."

Lonoff said that she had no complaints with the Widener elevators other than "a general slowness," but she added that next time, "I think I'll walk."