Hamptons Subway: Week of November 23 – 29, 2012
Riders this past week: 10,512
Rider miles this past week: 93,303
DOWN IN THE TUBE
Robert De Niro was seen on the subway between Southampton and North Sea on Wednesday afternoon. He said he was not a frequent visitor to the Hamptons but when he does come out, he rides the subway to keep himself centered. He’s not going anywhere in particular. It just makes him feel like he’s back in Tribeca.
THE TURKEY STAMPEDE
A new event, called the “Turkey Stampede” for charity, was held last Wednesday night after closing time, at 2 a.m., with a shepherd from the old country using a switch to keep the turkeys moving through the tunnels down the tracks from Westhampton to Montauk, arriving there just before opening time at 6 a.m. Each turkey got friends to donate so-much-a-mile for the effort, and the money will be donated to one or another of the charities out here. Nearly 1,000 turkeys participated.
The event cost Nick “Frank” Frankenstorm, our new PR and marketing director, his job, however. It was supposed to be heavily promoted beforehand and it wasn’t.
The straw that may have broken the camel’s back was that the event should have been in last week’s newsletter, but even that wasn’t done, so nobody showed up to watch. Also, as we write this, on Thursday afternoon, errant turkeys are still being rounded up here and there.
FLOOD PROTECTION
The subway is a sealed, underground system. So the only way a surge of water could get into it would be for the water to get down the subway stairs. As a result, an attempt is being made to design a system that could prevent that from happening by plugging them up.
Hampton Subway engineers are now working with car manufacturers in Detroit to design an enormous airbag—we would need 14 of them for all 14 entrances—that could be installed in the ceilings above the tops of the stairs so that, at the press of a button, they could inflate, zzzzzzzooooooMMMMM and seal the entrance watertight. The button would have to be well hidden, of course.
CAROLYN ASPINALL TURNS NINE
A huge birthday party for Carolyn Aspinall, the Commissioner’s daughter, was held simultaneously on all five floors of the Subway headquarters in Hampton Bays last Monday at noon, with all employees of the subway company present, bearing gifts.
This accounts for why the system was closed between noon and 3 p.m. that day, in case you didn’t see the signs down on all the platforms about it.
Five birthday cakes were baked and brought in, one on each floor, and Carolyn happily ran up and down the stairs blowing out the candles on each one after another. It sort of reminded everybody of Eloise, I think that’s her name, who runs around the Plaza.
Carolyn is the darling of the Subway System. She may not come by the office often—she did once last year—and her personal limo with driver prevents her using the subway as much as she might like, but we love her anyway. What’s it feel like to be nine? People asked her—a silly question—since everybody who works here was nine at one point or another.
COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
Commissioner Aspinall is off on vacation in the Turks and Caicos this week.