Week of June 1-7, 2012
Riders this week: 18,424
Rider miles this week: 154,002
DOWN IN THE TUBE
Peter Max was seen on the subway heading from Southampton to Hampton Bays, carrying a very large painting that barely fit through the door. Also seen on the subway in East Hampton was Tina Fey talking to Kim Cattrall heading east toward Montauk.
MEMORIAL DAY
The 10-minute Memorial Day train stoppage went well. It occurred as planned, at exactly 11 a.m. on Monday, Memorial Day. All the trains came to a halt wherever they were on the system, an announcement was made over the loud speakers in all the cars by Gladys Gooding that everybody should stand and remove their hats for one minute in honor of our soldiers overseas and everybody did. With that, “The Star Spangled Banner” was played over the loud speaker. The motormen waited five seconds after it ended and then the trains started. Most everyone was still standing at that point, and a few people got jostled but nothing serious. “What would have made this even better is if from where I was on one train, it could have been possible for me to see everyone doing the same thing on every train,” one woman said when it was over.
LITTLE DOG FRIGHTENED
The toy poodle that ran off onto the platform from that woman sitting in a subway car in Southampton last week was this week given a little fright trying to do it again. We explained to the woman, a personage of note who lives on Gin Lane, that dogs weren’t permitted on the subway, but Foofie, that is her name (the dog’s name), jumped out of the woman’s canvas bag again at the same location and headed to the platform, this time she didn’t make it. Foofie was hit on both sides by the closing doors, let out a yelp, jumped back in the subway car and back to the canvas bag the woman was carrying.
Although the closing doors only gave Foofie a little squeeze before recoiling open, we were subsequently urged by the woman’s husband, (who is a very important person) to do something about the doors and so we are. We are experimenting in the Montauk Yards with new, more sensitive doors that reopen immediately after giving just the slightest touch to a dog or anybody else. To test them, the men in the yard blindfolded one of the German Shepherd watchdogs there so he wouldn’t know he was being tapped by the doors, but the dog lept back when touched and had to be brought under control by handlers. Two employees were bitten.
THOSE WONDERFUL PUSHERS
Every summer, beginning with the Memorial Day weekend, we dress 16 interns in football helmets, boxing gloves and chest protectors to work pushing the crowds from the subway platform into the cars. A group picture was taken of them all together on the Hampton Bays platform last week and we’ve posted it on the bulletin board in the company cafeteria.
IGNORE THE ADS ON THOSE TWO SUBWAY CARS
We’ve had complaints from people who say that the Hamptons is no place for advertisements on the walls for pawn shops, Preparation H, injury lawyers and loan consolidation companies, especially when all these services are offered in Toronto, Canada.
As we explained last week, several subway cars from that city are leased by Hampton Subway during the busy summer months. Sorry for what you see up there, but these advertisers pay for those spaces, so they have to be there.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ARNIE PARNASSES
Our beloved bookkeeper, Arnie Parnasses, celebrated his 53rd birthday with a cake and candles in our cafeteria in Hampton Bays last week. Arnie was allowed a furlough from the county jail for the occasion. We love you, Arnie, even if you did embezzle $28,000. Make them prove it.
THE HAMPTON SUBWAY 80K?
Some enthusiastic runners, out from New York and preparing to compete in the Dan’s Papers Potatohampton Minithon in Bridgehampton on June 2, came by our offices yesterday to ask if we’d be interested in holding a Super 80K Marathon. The idea is that some of the most well conditioned runners in the world would compete late at night running the subway tunnels between 2 a.m. when we close for nightly maintenance until 6 a.m. when we reopen. We would be interested in this if the charity was right and there were something left over for us. It would also give the maintenance people the night off.
COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
I am proud of our pushers. I spoke to them when we took the 2012 photograph. I told them to not get too rough. They are unpaid interns and if they were injured doing this work, as happened two years ago, when one thumbed another in the eye, we just let the offender go. The interns aren’t being paid anyway, so we have no liability.