Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of August 17–23, 2017

By Dan Rattiner

4 minute 08/21/2017

José Velasquez Hamptons Subway tunnel painting, Photo: Igor Akimov/123RF

Week of August 17–23, 2017
Riders this past week: 71,411
Rider miles this past week: 208,755

DOWN IN THE TUBE
On Friday morning, Jimmy Fallon was seen riding the Hamptons Subway between Amagansett and East Hampton filming the stations whizzing by with his film crew. He is going to use it on his late night show, but it is not clear how. Regular riders between those stations at that time were asked to sign waivers to allow them to be on the show. Nobody refused. Academy Award Winner Mercedes Ruehl was seen on the subway riding between Springs and East Hampton that same night.

PUTIN STATUE
Employees of the subway were baffled last week when a seven-foot-tall bronze statue of Vladimir Putin arrived in Westhampton Beach and was set on the platform there. As Donald Trump now owns 25% of the shares of stock in Hamptons Subway, and as he raises the stakes in an attempt to buy the rest, it is believed that Trump ordered the statue sent there. After it was up a day, it was sent back to the White House marked “refused.” Commissioner Aspinall says no statue of Putin is welcome on the system while he remains in charge.

MASTIC REQUEST
The Village of Mastic, about four miles beyond the last stop on the Hamptons Subway at Remsenburg, has petitioned the subway system to extend its service to them. Mastic has requested that the State of New York approve its proposed name change to “Near Hampton,” for some reason. A lot of people are up in arms about it. Hopefully it won’t go through and we won’t have to go to that expense.

PAINTER SCANDAL
The art show “Velasquez Tunnels,” now on view in the gallery at the Subway headquarters building in Hampton Bays, has erupted in scandal. José Velasquez’s show is a series of oil paintings of the 28 tunnel entrances on the 21 stops on the subway system and has had glowing reviews from every art magazine in the country. (“It’s a new art form!” enthused one reviewer). The works have been selling like hotcakes at astronomical prices. Now it turns out that all of the paintings, even though they are called “Springs,” “Noyac,” “Quogue” and so forth, are all copies of paintings of just one tunnel, with little hints of the other tunnels painted over it. We all expected better.

JULIA ASPINALL’S WEDDING
Last Thursday at 1 p.m., riders noticed that the subway train coming through all the stations was twelve cars long instead of six, and only fit into the stations by stopping once, then pulling forward and stopping again for the last half of the train. After that, there was no further Hamptons Subway for two hours, at which time double-length trains came through again.

It turned out that Commissioner Aspinall’s daughter Julia insisted her wedding take place on the subway. Her train was parked in the Hampton Bays Station for the whole time, blocking everything, but Julia did get married successfully. Commissioner Aspinall said that many well-to-do couples pay to get married on the subway and take it over for a day, but it would be unseemly for his daughter to hold things up for so long. Aspinall deducted the two-hour cost from his salary. At the end, Julia and her new husband, assistant subway bookkeeper Charlie Bispinall, went up the escalator to be whisked away by a Hampton Jitney bus that took them to Stratton Mountain where they intend to honeymoon.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
Julia and Charlie, Bon Voyage. We love you.