Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of March 8–14, 2018
Week of March 8–14, 2018
Riders this past week: 8,644
Rider miles this past week: 93,777
DOWN IN THE TUBE
Authors Bob Caro, Tom Wolfe and Dava Sobel were seen on the Hamptons Subway talking with journalist Carl Bernstein and cartoonist Jules Feiffer about the Dan’s Papers Literary Prize for Nonfiction, which will begin accepting entries soon. They were all in Southampton, heading for Bobby Van’s in Bridgehampton.
SOLAR PANELS ON SUBWAYS PART 2?
The Sunshine Solar Panel Company has quickly installed solar panels on the roofs of all our subways and they’ve been out traveling the tunnels every day, but with no noticeable effect. Executives from Sunshine say you have to give them a little time to get used to being underground all day. Also, having them above ground in the Montauk Yards for maintenance every night from 2 to 6 a.m. will help too. Don’t make any rush to judgment, they say.
BEACH TREASURES
The two dead-end spurs, which take East Hampton bathers from Main Street to Main Beach and Southampton bathers to Cooper’s Beach in the summertime, have caused a lawsuit. Before the spurs were put into operation five years ago, the respective towns would send out metal detector trucks every morning at 9 a.m. to locate cash, wristwatches and wedding rings lost in the sand the day before. Since five years ago, Hamptons Subway has sent out its own metal trucks. They use them on the tracks every day. But now they go also go to the beaches at 8 a.m. to beat the towns. Apparently, the towns at first assumed people were just being more careful. But now they’ve figured it out and so filed a lawsuit claiming they want the Subway to pay them for the lost revenue. Both sides auction off what they find—on eBay in September every year—and they are suing for $2.8 million. Fat chance we are going to give it to them willingly. Beginning Memorial Day, there will be metal truck battles every day—be careful you don’t get run over.
CANNONBALLS
Local residents in Amagansett and Napeague had their night’s sleep interrupted last Thursday with sounds like thunder. It was the Huntington Militia’s Revolutionary War Cannon Firing Competition, held to see how far along the four-mile-long, underground straightaway of the Hamptons Subway tunnel in Napeague a ball could go. The militia paid us to hold this event between 2 and 5 a.m., when the subway is closed and people could hear the cannonballs in the night bouncing along the tracks at that hour. Some were 18 pounders, others 24 pounders. We don’t know who or what won.
RIDERS COUNTED
The number of riders using Hamptons Subway this past week was exactly identical to the week before. Also identical were the number of subway miles these riders traveled. One could conclude that these past two weeks we have been experiencing the absolute bottom of the winter, but more importantly, the fact that these two sets of numbers were identical two weeks in a row only happens 1 in every 2,523,813 tries. That means it could have happened in caveman times if there was a Hamptons Subway then, which there wasn’t. The records on Hamptons Subway keep being shattered over and over.
COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
The valuable diamond rings and pearls we’ve found on the tracks (and the beach) have been sold off, but we have a warehouse full of flip-flops, bathing suits, plastic pails and shovels and kites, if anyone wants to claim them. Go to our Hampton Bays office to look.