Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of July 4–10, 2019

By Dan Rattiner

5 minute 07/08/2019

Toxic green goo found during construction of the Hamptons Subway East Hampton Airport stop, Photo: Jamie Wilson/123RF

Week of July 4–10, 2019
Riders this past week: 57,832
Rider miles this past week: 188,345

DOWN IN THE TUBE
Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman were seen taking the subway from Sag Harbor to Bridgehampton after walking on the Shelter Island to Sag Harbor ferry last Thursday as passengers. They are filming the new HBO series The Undoing on Shelter Island and in the village of East Marion on the North Fork. East Hampton’s Jon Bon Jovi took the subway from Sagaponack to our new luxurious Georgica stop Saturday morning.

FIREWORKS
Hundreds of people with blankets and lawn chairs assembled on the Southampton platform to watch the fireworks display over the tracks last Wednesday. Because of the low ceiling at the station, the display was mostly pinwheels, an electrified KEEP AMERICA GREAT display and a series of sparkling birthday candles in the shape of little American flags. It got smoky and people sputtered and coughed but had a good time.

TOXIC LEAK
Construction has been halted on the underground tunnel work intending to connect the system to a planned new stop at the East Hampton Airport. Workmen operating the giant underground tunnel boring machine chewed across into the airport property last Friday only to have some toxic goo seep out of the dirt in front of the boring machine and melt the boring machine steel screw with a stinky hiss into some kind of soft rubbery plastic.

This is a very expensive machine and the men, after advising headquarters about what happened, were told to back up the machine carefully one hundred feet and park while taking care that none of the workmen came in contact with this screw and goo, then leave the tunnel immediately, which they did, by running on foot back out to the Georgica stop and then up the escalator there.

The workmen have bored into a section of the airport recently declared a superfund site by the EPA due to the discovery of toxic material including machine oil, aviation fuel, arsenic, nitrogen and old lace. It needs to all be removed before the tunnel can proceed which could take years.

The beautiful new modern subway platform just completed under the airport terminal will now just have to wait awhile. Perhaps they can store baggage down there.

As we go to press we learn that workmen in HAZMAT suits have gone down to retrieve the boring machine but returned to say they found it a glowing, melted heap.

STRONGMEN
As you know, Hamptons Subway offers the luxurious subway car Le Internationale for rent. It can glide slowly around the subway system late at night after the system closes for maintenance. Used primarily as a private and secure luxury conference car, business and government officials often hold private negotiations aboard Le Internationale. Although such rentals are top secret, we are now bursting to tell you that sometime next week—we are not saying which night it is—President Trump has leased it for a series of what he calls “Strongman” sessions with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Chinese Premiere Xi Jinping, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and Iran’s Hassan Rouhani all in attendance. This is quite a feather in our cap. And mum’s the word.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
Another subway boring machine owned by the newly approved Patchogue Subway System burst through the wall of our Westhampton stop on Tuesday intending to connect with us, but we are not willing to allow that. We poured a pile of concrete, which quickly hardened just in front of where the Patchogue service broke through. We don’t appreciate surprises of this sort. This is the Hamptons, after all.