Amelia of Finley Hall

I tried to josh with her, "You've actually been very naughty."

She smiled, "Yes, maybe you should use those birch rods on me."Wow, that was blunt. But she sat back again and she didn't seem to have a follow-up.

Suddenly, she sat up and lightly kissed me on the mouth, "Paul, you've been very sweet but it's time for me to go now." She got up and started to her drawers back on.

"Where exactly are you going?"

"I just have to go." If had been three hours earlier, I would have invited her downtown for drinks and maybe dinner. I was suddenly feeling frantic. "Millie, I'll take you out to dinner. I'm free tomorrow evening."

Instead of answering, she reached back to get her skirt. I was still talking, "All right, what day would be good for you? I mean, they're all good for me, as far as I'm concerned." It wasn't supposed to be a one-night stand, or at least that's the way I saw it.

She seemed very fast at getting dressed. The last thing she said was, "Paul, I do appreciate what you have done." Then she turned and headed for the door. Like an idiot, I was still sitting there with my pants down. I tried to get them up and walk at the same time. As she opened the door, I called out, "I'll take you over to Amsterdam and we can catch a cab."

I lost a couple of seconds fooling around with my trousers. I entered the hallway and I didn't see her. The entrance to the main stairs was just across the way. I went in there and I could see the whole staircase winding down to the first floor, but there was no Millie in sight.

Back in the hallway, I decided to check its two legs that went off to form a U-shape that matched the shape of the wing I was in. She wasn't in either of those.

Think this through. If you look out the windows, it might not be too late to see her leaving. But did she go out the front or the back? I assumed the 135th Street gate beyond the rear entrance was closed, so I dashed into the office again which had a view of the front. She wasn't out there, but the driveway curved around and I couldn't see all the way to Convent Avenue.

It seemed imperative that I find her, and I ran out of the building and went all the way down to the Convent Avenue gate. There was a guard in a booth there, but he ignored me. I stepped out and looked along 133rd Street and up and down Convent, but there was nobody in any direction.

Now it would take at least ten minutes to get back to the office. Once there, I sat down and had an intense feeling of disappointment. That girl had been bizarre. It's possible she was a nymphomaniac. (Now the term is hypersexual disorder.) It was great to finally get laid. However, I wasn't looking for casual sex. I wanted a girlfriend, someone I could take to a bar or restaurant and then a movie. And Millie had seemed like she'd be plausible girlfriend material.

And I was feeling lust, too. She had that beautiful ass of hers inside those drop-seat drawers, or whatever they were called. I couldn't just let that slip away.

I figured she'd come back to Finley - maybe tomorrow - to look for me. I hoped I wouldn't have to look for her, assuming she really was a student as she had said. There were about 10,000 of them here, and finding a certain person would be a matter of chance at best

I looked at my watch and saw that it was 12:30 AM. Shit, I've never been here so late. It wasn't that safe to walk to any of the three subway stations, all of which were several blocks away. I figured I'd get a livery car on Amsterdam Avenue and go to 145th Street. The D train wasn't safe either, but I could ride with the conductor and I'd probably be all right.

*********

Millie didn't show up the next day, even though I tried to maximize the time I spent at the office. I didn't tell anyone about my experience. On the second day, I spoke to a fellow staff member, Jeff Kimmel, who I had met back in high school. I was in the newspaper office again, and I tried to be as off-hand about it as I could.

"When I was here Tuesday night, this girl came up here to talk to me. It was really late, after eleven o'clock."

His reply surprised me, "Did she make some moves on you?"

"Yeah, quite a few moves, in fact."

He hesitated for a moment. "Was her name Amelia Thurber?"

"It sure was. How did you know about that?"

"Because she's been around here before, doing the same thing."

I said, "Okay, it did seem like she was a bit unstable." Should I tell him more? "Maybe she was even a nymphomaniac."

"She's more than that, or she's different I'd say." He hesitated again. "There was a student here during Manhattanville College days named Amelia Thurber. In 1912, she committed suicide by taking poison. It was in one of the dorms here I think, probably in this building."

The implications of that didn't hit me immediately. "And who told you that?"

"People have looked into it. There have been reports about her going back to the 1960s. Maybe even to 1956, when the city took over the building."

I couldn't respond to that. He went on, "She's usually here, late at night, in one of the five newspaper offices on the third floor. If there is some young guy alone in one of the rooms, it's likely that she'll come in and introduce herself."

All I could say was, "That's so strange."

"Bobbie met her here last year." Bobbie Metsky was our resident pornographer. He was a quiet and somewhat morose senior. Back in those days, we got away with publishing the "Weird" section, which had explicit stories and drawings. Bobbie had created the section and he edited it. The students kept funding us with their activity fees; some even claimed it was our best feature.

Jeff seemed to be amused and he went on about Bobbie. "You know what that crazy guy did? He came back here four more times, and she arrived here every time."

"Did she remember him?"

"No she didn't, she just came in and went through the same routine each time. I guess every time he wants to get a piece of tail, he drops in here late at night."

"He's kind of exploiting her, isn't he?"

"I don't know if you can exploit somebody who is actually dead."

"They should get a paranormal investigator in here."

"There was a guy here in '71. What he did was spend a night in each of the five offices. When she didn't show up, he started the cycle again, but he gave up after eight nights."

"How did she know he was here to investigate her?"

"Like I would know that."

"Jeff, she wasn't like a specter. She was so solid, I'd say."

"I know. You implied that you actually banged her, didn't you?"

I admitted, "Yeah, I did. I wonder if it counts with a ghost?"

"If you came in her, I guess it counts. Hey, if you want to, come back like Bobbie did and have her again. She's not dangerous in any way."

I threw it back at him, "If you think it's such a great idea, why don't you do it here some night?"

"Oh no, not me; I don't need it that badly."

"I don't think I need it either. It's just too creepy." And yet, somewhere in my mind, I was tempted.

I ultimately decided that living girls were preferable to dead ones, and I never went back. I wasn't going to do what Bobbie had done, which was go through the same thing each time and then have her disappear.

Plus, as I said to Jeff, the whole thing was indeed creepy. In fact, I always made sure to be out of Finley before night came. I might get further pleasure from her, but it wasn't worth it. I got the willies imagining her knocking on the door again. Whatever walked there, walked alone.

Yet, during the last weeks of the term, I sometimes hoped to see Amelia going around the campus in her dark brimmed hat. I knew that would never happen because she was only around at night and besides, she was tied indefinitely to the third floor of Finley.

Finley Hall was demolished in 1985, long after I had graduated. I went up there soon afterwards, and there was only a field of bricks where the building had stood.

In the last decade, the Advanced Research Science Center was built on the South Campus. It seems that the northern end of the building overlaps with the footprint of the former Finley Hall. Whether or not Amelia Thurber appears there is something I do not know.

*************

Author's note: Finley Hall did exist as described here, and the five newspapers were on the third floor. However, when I was at City College, I didn't see or hear anything about ghosts. However, I did a little research recently, and for the last one-hundred years that have been reports of specters that appear to be former students and professors. One of them is supposedly of a student who died in 1918. I don't know if these occurred at the original 1907 City College (the North Campus) or at the former Manhattanville College site (the South Campus), which was first developed as a school in the 1840s.

My own opinion is that most ghost sightings (or often just hearings) are the results of poor perceptions and overactive imaginations. I did hear from a reliable source about one in a Massachusetts house. That was pretty vivid and seemed hard to explain. A psychologist I knew at the time said that it could have been I result of hypnagogia, the state of mind between wakefulness and sleep. But I'll never be sure.