Week of February 24 – March 1, 2012

Riders this week: 11,412

Rider miles this week: 106,444

DOWN IN THE TUBE

Commissioner Aspinall and his wife Agnes made their annual tour of all the subway stops, as they do every year on the anniversary of the discovery of this antique subway system, originally built in secret to store New York City Subway building supplies in 1932, but then discovered on this day, March 1, 2006, by workmen in Sag Harbor digging to find out how deep a superfund oil spill had leaked.

The Commissioner and his Missus were greeted by happy throngs at every stop where one after the other, they would get off onto the platform, shake some hands, then get on to the next train to the next station. They completed the circuit back and got back to Hampton Bays in less than two hours, and then repaired to Laface to Lafeet Spa in Hampton Bays for well-earned massages.

GIRAFFE

Trains were delayed for 20 minutes on Tuesday as environmentalists worked to clear a giraffe out of the tunnel between Westhampton and Quiogue. There must be quite a story attached to how he got there. He was eating some really nasty stuff off the ceiling of the tunnel adjacent to the electric lights. It was easy to get him up and onto the platform at Westhampton, but hell getting him up the escalator to the street. Nine environmentalists participated.

BASKETBALL

Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks was reported to be out looking for a mansion out by the beach in Southampton this week. Our spies say he seems to be willing to spend $12 million give or take a few mill. High ceilings are a must. He spent a half hour riding from Southampton to East Hampton, and was seen in the subway car on the way back eating a slice of pizza from Sam’s.

NEW SLOGANS

Pretty soon you will be seeing our new advertising slogans in Dan’s Papers and on our stationery. The Commissioner said we need to have slogans, and our new marketing director Charlie Chan agreed. But Chan also said we should have two so people would be surprised when they saw it was one, not the other. The two personally chosen by the Commissioner are WHY GO TO THE BEACH WHEN YOU CAN RIDE THE SUBWAY? Also HAMPTON SUBWAY IS HARMFUL UA AND UB RADIATION FREE. WHY TAKE A RISK? The campaign is targeted at Mr. Sun. It’s a bullseye, in our opinion.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

I invited President Obama to come join Agnes and I on our annual tootle around the system. There were the adoring crowds that I know he is familiar with, but I don’t think the invitation got all the way to his desk. I received a reply on White House stationery with his signature at the bottom saying that he was honored to have been invited, had put it in his schedule to attend, but then at the last minute something came up with Iran and he had to beg off. It just didn’t sound like the way the President writes.

Next Monday I will be in New York City to meet with Mayor Bloomberg and the Commissioner of the New York Subway System Robert O’Leary, and the head of the MTA Joseph Lhota, to look into whether it might be a good idea for Hampton Subway to buy the New York Subway System. The subway system is badly run, losing money daily and the City wants to get it off its hands. I’m told they might sell it to us for $1.