The Hamptons Subway
Week of April 13-19, 2012
Riders this week: 11,442
Rider miles this week: 126,809
DOWN IN THE TUBE
A woman who we believe to be Alec Baldwin’s fiancée was on the subway heading from Bridgehampton to East Hampton last Thursday afternoon. We’re really not sure it was her, because she’s new to the scene and photos of her are few and far between. So I guess this is called a “maybe” sighting. In any case besides that, we spotted Sting, it was definitely him, on a westbound subway heading out of Southampton. He gave our spotter the thumbs up.
NEW ESCALATOR RAILINGS
TO BE REPLACED
Last month, with a little money left in the monthly maintenance kitty, we ordered new railings for the down escalators that take straphangers from the token booths down to the platforms. Unfortunately, these railings failed to move as the escalators move. They remain perfectly still and if you hold onto one of them long enough, you will be forced to fall down where you are standing as the moving steps go out from under you. It’s been found that we ordered the wrong models. As a result, we are taking them out and re-installing the old railings which work perfectly anyway. The “new” ones will be returned to the seller since we have not had them more than 30 days. With all the trouble and expense of all this, we used up the money in the kitty though, so now that’s okay.
EASTER EGG HUNT
The easter egg hunt our new marketing director Chad Willows organized for last Sunday afternoon on all the platforms was a big success. Hundreds attended. All service was stopped for the hour of the hunt. Lots of eggs were found on the tracks. No kids got missing as in years past. For next year, somebody has to tell Willows however that the eggs are supposed to be hard boiled before they are set out. Broken eggs all over were a problem at the end and there had to be an extra fifteen minutes taken to hose all the platforms down to flush the gooey mess off the platforms and down onto the tracks. Trains continue to run slightly slower making their rounds to avoid skidding.
REPLY TO MRS. “ANONYMOUS.”
You left a note in our suggestion box in Southampton requesting that any animals found on the system not be euthanized but instead handed over to the appropriate environmental organization for a medical checkup and eventual adoption or release into the wild. Mrs. Anonymous, we have to tell you we have been doing this for years, so it is nothing new. You didn’t have to make a big stink about it as you did in your outrageous letter.
QUERY REPLY
Sir, you asked how it happened that in the 1930s, when we were planning our headquarters building in Hampton Bays we chose Albrect Speer, the architect to Adolph Hitler to design us one in the brutal monumental style that he favored. This was before the war and Hitler had not yet invaded Poland. It was considered a nice gesture on the part of the powers that be here at the subway system at the time, sort of a pat on the back to the Nazi system before it flew too much out of control, which, as you know, it eventually did. As a matter of fact, after the war, local protests were held to have our headquarters building torn down. But after looking at how it was built with its reinforced concrete walls seven feet thick to last 1,000 years, it was decided it would be impossible to do that without destroying much of Hampton Bays. Since then, we’ve gotten used to it. Speer did have a point, about architecture anyway. Well, maybe not.
COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
I continue to huddle with Mayor Bloomberg in New York City in the hopes that he come to his senses about the fact that he should never have sold the New York Subway System to Hampton Subway, even for the $1 we paid him. He needs to reverse the sale. We sold the Lexington Line to the Toronto Subway system last week in order to have the money to meet the next MTA payroll. I told him, and this is true, cross my heart, that the beloved A Line will be the next to get sold, to the BART System in San Francisco which has expressed an interest, if he does not relent and take it back by next week. I don’t know what came over me when I agreed to buy this catastrophe. It leaks money like a sieve.