Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of December 21–27, 2018

By Dan Rattiner

5 minute 12/24/2018

Santa with gifts — Santa will come to Hamptons Subway HQ on Christmas Eve, Photo: Kirill Kedrinski/123RF

Week of December 21–27, 2018
Riders this past week: 31,922
Rider miles this past week: 91,412

DOWN IN THE TUBE
Christie Brinkley, JLo, Bethenny Frankel, Scarlett Johansson and Julianne Moore were seen riding the Hamptons Subway together last Friday evening, wearing elf costumes and singing Christmas songs to the crowds lugging their Christmas packages on the main line all the way from Westhampton Beach to Amagansett. Way to go, ladies.

SANTA WILL ARRIVE ATOP OUR BUILDING
Spotlights have been set up on the lawn at the Hamptons Subway building on Ponquogue Avenue in Hampton Bays to shine on the roof deck four stories up on Christmas Eve. The chimney has been cleaned by workmen with brooms, there’s a forest of Christmas trees up there and, when the time comes at 3:35 a.m. on Christmas morning, the helicopter will arrive with Santa. If you want to stay up to watch his arrival, just tune in to channel 56 on your TV or drive over and park on the street with the motor running to keep warm out front at that hour.

There will be plenty of parking at that time. Santa will hop out of the chopper, and with the carolers singing “Oh Holy Night,” carry his large bag full of presents for all our employees to the chimney, climb inside and I’m sure all you newsletter readers are going to want to see this. It will be all over up there by 4 a.m. when the chopper takes Santa away and you will have plenty of time to return home to climb into bed for the remainder of that long winter night before everything happens first thing in the morning.

PRIZES AWARDED
Commissioner Aspinall has toured all 14 platforms, each one decorated by its local community to win the three prizes for free subway swipe cards for one week. And the winner is: Southampton for their accurate reproduction of “Away in a Manger” with the live sheep and Mary and Joseph and their little one right inside the turnstiles, which are covered with pine needle branches to simulate a fence that separates the manger and the inn, where they weren’t allowed to stay for the night.

Second prize went to Westhampton Beach, the winner in the Chanukah Category for their construction of the 20-foot-tall dreidel and menorah robots that dance together to “Hava Nageela” played over and over again by the Westhampton Beach Community Band. And third prize went to the Nineveh section of Sag Harbor, which reproduced a Kwanzaa scene with everybody shaking hands and exchanging gifts. All these winning entries, together with the remaining 11 losing community entries, will stay up until December 28, when, finally, they will be taken down for the big New Year’s Eve party we hold every year in the tunnels between all the stations.

All this is quite a show as you can imagine, and we are proud to announce that through it all, at least at this writing, there has not been one single train late or in an accident at any station. The motormen elves are very, very focused on their jobs during this time of year as you can imagine.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
As I do every year, I will be dressing myself up as Santa Claus and giving out candy canes and jelly beans as I make random appearances at each of our 14 platforms during the next few days. Merry Christmas, everybody. And I do have to report that I had to lose 10 pounds to be able to pull up the zipper on my Santa suit this year. Thanksgiving dinner was the cause.