The Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of October 26 – November 1, 2012

Riders this past week: 15,412
Rider miles this past week: 99,543

DOWN IN THE TUBE
Molly Simms and her husband, Scott Stuber, were seen enjoying conversation on the subway between Bridgehampton to Wainscott. Meryl Streep was seen down on the subway platform in Hampton Bays during the film festival, but after awhile, instead of getting on the subway, she took the escalator up and out.

MARATHON SUBWAY RIDER
You may have seen this young woman, Stefanie Gray, riding the Hampton Subway here for long periods of time, going round and round. Gray is training for her big attempt, next week, at riding all the subways in Manhattan one at a time without coming up to the street to see if she can break the Guinness Book of World Records record which is 22 hours, 52 minutes and 36 seconds. She has to take every subway there is, stop at every stop on every line and it doesn’t matter in what order she does it.
One part of her training consisted of riding  the Hampton Subway for 23 hours, which she did from Wednesday to Thursday.

BIG PROMOTION A SUCCESS
To celebrate Birthday Cake Week this past week, Hampton Subway had hundreds of chocolate cakes with vanilla icing made up, cut into small slices and then handed out by docents at all the subway turnstiles to the straphangers who came through. Some of the straphangers were not happy about this, which was strange. At the end of the day, the platforms had to be hosed down from the mess. Everybody is supposed to love chocolate cake with vanilla icing.

NUPTUALS AHEAD?
Are wedding bells in the cards for Token Clerk Annie Brody and flagman Tommy Thompson? They were seen last week holding hands in the company cafeteria. Then they were seen arguing about something, then tearfully making up. Then they were seen with her head resting on his shoulder, sitting on the subway going from Hampton Bays to Southampton yesterday.

SUBWAY TV
Those TV sets, which have been dark since they were put up four months ago, will come alive next week so subway riders can watch the World Series as they go where they have to get. There had been problems with paperwork and permits and Cablevision but that’s all been straightened out. One full route around the subway system from Montauk to Westhampton takes about an hour and 15 minutes so two round trips should allow you to watch a whole game, if it doesn’t go into extra innings.

TINTED GLASS
At the suggestion of one of our riders who dropped a note into one of our suggestion boxes (at the back of all token booths), we ordered 50 panels of tinted glass and tried them out in one of our subway cars as a test for a week. Most people hated them. Surveys showed riders felt they made the subway ride dark and gloomy. Some said it made them start to cry. We have removed the tinted glass.

UNDERGROUND PARKING LOT STRIKE
Last week, Hampton Subway broke ground on its doubledecker underground parking garage beneath the Village of Sag Harbor. Motorists can come in direct, and from the Sag Harbor platform can take the subway to almost anywhere. Just one week into the work, however, a wildcat strike broke out amongst the cementmixer truck drivers, and so, without cement, the job has shut down. We will keep you informed about how this works out. We just have to find out what their problem is.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
Commissioner Aspinall did not file a report for this issue. He is in Tanzania climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. We guess there’s no Internet there.