Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of September 16–22, 2016
Week of September 16-22, 2016
Riders this past week: 14,923
Rider miles this past week: 86,512
DOWN IN THE TUBE
Mark Feuerstein and Paulo Costanzo of the now defunct television show Royal Pains were seen riding the subway from Bridgehampton to Water Mill last Thursday morning. Debbie Harry was seen riding the subway from Southampton to Sagaponack carrying packages.
TAPS AT THE BEACH
As summer comes to a close, Hamptons Subway has to reluctantly shut down it’s “spur” lines that go from Jobs Lane to Coopers Beach in Southampton and Newtown Lane to Main Beach in East Hampton. If the openings to the platforms are not sealed up at the back of the dunes, it’s possible that winter storms could send the ocean up backwards through the tunnels into the center of town. This year, the closings will take place respectively on September 24 and 25 in Southampton and East Hampton—on these different days because our new marketing director Billy Buttons has decided to mark the mornings of the closings with grand ceremonies on the beach. Present at sunset at 7 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday will be the marching bands from Southampton and East Hampton High Schools respectively along with the well known trumpet player Bill Henry who will, at the end of a John Philip Sousa march, play a forlorn and short version of “Taps.” With that, the enormous iron doors, 10 feet wide and 12 feet high, will be slowly swung on their hinges closed and locked by Mayors Epley and Rickenbach. The public is welcome to attend.
COMPLAINTS ABOUT LATE TRAINS
Hamptons Subway keeps track of all complaint calls about trains being late. As there is no such thing as a subway train being late, we monitor the calls as reference points marking the level of intellectual intelligence of the ridership. As a percentage of total riders, the number of those calls goes up in the summertime and then down in the wintertime. Over the years, there has been no change in the total percentage rate per year, sadly enough.
OLD CAR PARADE
In late August every summer all the horses in the Hampton Classic arrive by parading along the subway tracks from Westhampton to Bridgehampton on a Friday night of the week before, similar to the way the elephants and other animals parade through the tunnels to get to Madison Square Garden for New York City’s annual Barnum & Bailey Circus the week before. This week, we begin a new tradition. A long parade of perhaps 40 early classic motorcars will drive along the tracks for the commencement of the 2016 Bridgehampton Road Rally & Tour d’Hamptons presented by the Bridgehampton Museum and Dan’s Papers on Saturday, October 1. The parade will take place through the tunnels early Saturday morning between 2 and 6 a.m. when the subway system is closed for maintenance.
TRIMMER STAFF
If the token booth agents, the motormen, the conductors and the subway police look leaner and trimmer, it could be because of the new caterers at the Hamptons Subway cafeteria in our office building in Hampton Bays. Out are the Jell-O fruit molds. In are the chopped raw broccoli and kale casseroles. All thanks to the Antelope and Beaver Vegetarian Catering Company of Shirley, Long Island.
COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
We’d like to apologize to the owners of the Harrison Bar and Grille in Hampton Bays for the mayhem caused by our first annual Intern Appreciation Dinner last Wednesday night to mark the return to college of all these young folks who worked for the subway system this summer. I just don’t know what gets into some people.