Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of April 26–May 1, 2019

By Dan Rattiner

5 minute 04/29/2019

Printing newspaper — Photo: zefart/123RF

Week of April 26–May 1, 2019
Riders this past week: 51,388
Rider miles this past week: 114,812

DOWN IN THE TUBE
Artist April Gornik was seen on the Hamptons Subway Monday morning traveling between Sag Harbor and North Haven looking at a set of architect plans for some new project she is working on. Also on that same subway train but in a different car was Jerry Seinfeld and Jimmy Fallon, talking about cars and coffee.

OUR TENTH ANNIVERSARY
Next week is the 10th anniversary of the Hamptons Subway Newsletter getting broad exposure by being published in Dan’s Papers. It’s really an interesting story about how it came about. Eleven years ago, Hamptons Subway’s Commissioner—retired Governor Hugh Carey was Commissioner at that time—ordered the printing of a Hamptons Subway weekly newsletter about the internal goings on with the company.

He set out 10,000 copies each week in piles at all 14 token booths on the system. It was soon found that almost nobody ever read it and the piles of the newsletters snapped up but then thrown to the platform floors needed sweeping up. What a mess.

At the end of that first year, it was decided to ask Dan’s Papers, which was and is the most widely read publication in the Hamptons, if they would like to publish it. Dan Rattiner of Dan’s Papers said if they would pay for the space he’d do it, so the Commissioner, seeing it would be cheaper by far to spend the company’s money that way instead of printing a separate newsletter, made the deal. Now, 10 years later, it continues to be published in Dan’s Papers and still nobody reads it, but there are far more readers who don’t. Anyway, our current commissioner Bill Aspinall lifted a glass of rosé wine with the current CEO of Dan’s Papers Steve McKenna and together, they dipped matzah into the wine and ate and drank.

EASTER
We had our annual Easter Egg Hunt last Sunday on the Southampton platform, and this year the program took a dramatic turn. The eggs were spread out on the platform, the kids waited with their parents excitedly at one side for the firing of a small yacht club cannon when, on cue, our seven foot tall Easter Bunny—actually marketing director Fred Finefield in a bunny suit—came gliding down the escalator waving a mittened hand at everyone in greeting until his great ears got caught in the ceiling fan halfway down the escalator, lifted him up, spun him around 10 times, ripped off his bunny helmet and dropped him bareheaded into the center of the platform.

The kids swarmed on him where he lay and covered him with hugs, put the helmet on his head, helped him stand up and then watched him dizzily fall down again. After that the kids ran off and picked up all the eggs and ran up and out into the street with their parents. And then the cannon was fired. There were no injuries.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
My friend Donald Trump visited me and my wife at our oceanfront home last weekend. He’s been a good friend. He’s very concerned he might be impeached and he cried a lot, and my wife and I consoled him. We had made him a fine dinner, which he consumed with gusto, but for dessert, my wife suggested we hold off on the peach cobbler and I thought it a good idea, too. We froze the cobbler, and instead ate stacks of Tate’s chocolate chip cookies for dessert. If the peachment problem fades away or he beats it, and comes back again for dinner, we’ll serve it then to triumphantly finish the meal.