Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of December 7–13, 2017

By Dan Rattiner

4 minute 12/11/2017

Hamptons Subway "Kalamazoo" station — Hamptons Subway “Kalamazoo” station, Photo: David Novi/123RF

Week of December 7–13, 2017
Riders this past week: 24,812
Rider miles this past week: 86,741

DOWN IN THE TUBE
Painter April Gornik and rock star Billy Joel of Sag Harbor were seen chatting together while taking the subway from Sag Harbor to Bridgehampton last Friday morning. East Hampton’s JayZ was seen on the subway on Saturday afternoon heading for the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett for a little jam session, he told our spotter.

DELAY
Trains were delayed between East Hampton and Wainscott late Thursday morning when Joe Bensimono, a flagman in the tunnel between those stations, left his post to attend his 31st birthday party the staff threw for him in the cafeteria of the Hamptons Subway building in Hampton Bays. He just left his post without telling anyone, putting his red and green, stop and go, subway flags against the wall at his post. The slowdown there developed into a 20-minute delay, which ended when Joe came back there after the party.

KALAMAZOO
Filmmakers for the upcoming movie Kalamazoo filmed on the Southampton platform last Saturday. The name of that station had signs covering “Southampton” everywhere, reading “Kalamazoo,” since this was supposed to be the Kalamazoo subway stop where the romantic love scene at the end of the movie takes place. Late that night, the filmmakers left but forgot to take the Kalamazoo signs with them, which caused serious problems during the morning commute. Many people riding into the station were confused by the name and so stayed on the subway and wound up overshooting Southampton by getting off in Water Mill or Shinnecock. Others, surprised to see Kalamazoo having a stop, got off to look around but then were disappointed when they went up the escalator to find they were in Southampton.

HALL OF STATUES PLAN
Hamptons Subway intends to have full-size statues of particular celebrities placed on the platforms of the stations near to where they live. They may slow you down as you walk to your train, but they will give you a little thrill knowing those celebrities are here. Since June, subway riders have been voting for their favorite celebrity by writing his or her name on a slip of paper and putting it in one of the suggestion boxes at each station. The voting ended on December 1 and so we are now tallying. The statues will be made by Madame Tussauds and will be in place by Memorial Day.

SUBWAY TOKENS
Someone is jamming subway tokens into the swipe card machines at all the turnstiles. Whoever you are, cut it out.

SPAGHETTI COW CATCHERS
After many complaints about the steel cow catchers that were bolted to the front of all the subway cars last month to make sure animals on the tracks do not harm the subway cars when killed by a train, we have taken the hint from environmentalists and replaced all the steel cow catchers with stiff strands of uncooked #6 spaghetti. The spaghetti cow catchers are formidable in nudging large animals off to the side, and after that the animals can eat the spaghetti to remain fat and healthy. We have a whole bunch of spaghetti cow catchers stored in a warehouse.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
Last week I celebrated my seventh year as Commissioner of Hamptons Subway and I took the occasion to walk around on the different platforms to accept the congratulations offered to me by many of the riders. Much appreciated.