Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of August 24–30, 2012

DOWN IN THE TUBE

Mike Lupica, James Lipton, Ken Auletta and Mort Zuckerman were seen shagging grounders on the Sag Harbor platform before boarding the subway headed for the Artist-Writers softball game in East Hampton. Little did they know that, up above at ground level, it had been called off because of the torrential downpours. The game is to take place this Saturday, August 25 at 2 p.m.

SECRET ROMNEY FUNDRAISER

Mitt Romney raised several million dollars at a fundraiser in the Hamptons last Friday. It was held in the clubhouse of the Sebonack Golf Course. What’s little known, however, is that a second fundraiser was held after the Sebonack fundraiser here on the Hampton Subway that nobody is supposed to know anything about. Now that it’s over, however, we can proudly tell you about it, and because it was on our subway, we can break the story. Romney and his entourage, the caterers, subway officials and some high rollers occupied two subway cars taking three full circuits around the system, from Westhampton Beach to Montauk and back, during which time the rest of the system operated perfectly normally. Who knew they were there? We did!! It’s okay to report this, isn’t it, Mr. Commissioner? There’s already been those mysterious reports in other newspapers about all the thousand dollar bills found by scavengers all along the tracks on our system. Now it can be told!

KIDS EVENT PROBLEMS

Hampton Subway’s new marketing person Liz Albatross, hired just last week, had a surprise for our Commissioner Bill Aspinall when he came home from his one-week vacation in Paris. To show what she could do, she had organized, promoted and held the first kid’s program ever on a subway system platform. It consisted of escalator races for kids four to ten, up and down from the street to the East Hampton platform, and also time trial slides on those escalator bannisters afterwards. The races did disrupt access to the station for an hour, but the kids loved it. The winners all got gift certificates (non-transferable) entitling them to two-scoop chocolate ice cream cones with sprinkles every single day for a year at the Bridgehampton Candy Kitchen. Although four kids were injured and two taken to Southampton Hospital suffering palpitations(they’re fine), Ms. Albatross declared the event a huge success and promised to hold it again next year. After he got home from Paris, however, the Commissioner fired Ms. Albatross. A search is underway for a new marketing director, which will be the 14th since the beginning of the year, a record.

NEW RULES FOR MUSICIANS

Musicians using the subway system must now comply with new rules. Instrument cases must not be more than five feet high and three feet by two feet in the other dimensions. That tuba caught in the turnstile in East Hampton last week is not something that Commissioner Aspinall wants to see happen again.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

My wife and I have just returned from a wonderful one-week business trip to Paris to have a good look at the subway system over there. The Commissioner of that system, Pierre LaGrande–Pic, took us around, and through an interpreter told us the subway is called Le Metro. I learned a great deal about their system. One of the most wonderful things about it is the art deco style of the signage and entrance canopies at many stations, which give the names of the stations to the pedestrians as they wander by in the most exuberant style and, always, in French! I wonder if we couldn’t have something like that. “Le Amagensatte.” Maybe subway entrance signage in the shape of windmills, as I saw at Moulin Rouge in Montmartre. Ah, Montmartre!