meet the simmons elevators! by Ellie F. '28
aka me thinking wayyy too much about elevators
Things always seem to come in threes. The Three Musketeers. The Holy Trinity. Rock, Paper, Scissors. The Plastics. And for Simmons Hall, our three elevators, Alevator, Belevator, and Celevator, each named for the tower it calls home.
MIT Wifi doesn’t work in the elevators, so whenever I’m in one, I have no choice but to ponder the machine surrounding me. All three elevators have a board full of posters, and the floor selection buttons that don’t always light up, and they all make a confusing series of dings whenever they open, but, like the distinct colors of their ceiling lights, they have very different personalities.
Alevator is sweet as can be, and as the farthest elevator from the entrance of Simmons, no one ever uses her. That means that whenever you call her, you can hear her whir to life and go straight to you like a personal chauffeur. I have never felt more important in my life. Alevator is a golden retriever in mechanical box form and if she was a real person I think our friendship would be a bit toxic and codependent <3 Needless to say, she’s my favorite.
Belevator is probably our most well-known elevator. Belevator lands right outside the dining hall, and generally serves the widest range of Simmons, so he’s constantly on the run. The first time I tried to take Belevator, it took over three minutes of creaking and groaning for him to arrive. He breaks down on a regular basis, much like MIT students during midterms season. In fact, he is so reliably unreliable that the Simmons Discord server has a channel dedicated to warning people when he’s out of service. We also have Belevator Down hoodies prominently displayed among campus fashion.
Celevator is my home elevator as a resident of C Tower. She’s the first elevator you see as you enter Simmons, and as such, is quite popular. Even though she’s pretty busy, she rarely breaks down. You always seem to be sharing the elevator with a stranger in awkward silence, and Celevator also has a strange habit of going all the way to the first floor, pausing, and then actually going to the floor you selected.
