Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of September 26–October 2, 2019

By Dan Rattiner

5 minute 09/30/2019

Hamptons Subway will open the newly discovered, rusted door on Halloween, Photo: Anatoliy Lastovetskiy/123RF

Week of September 26–October 2, 2019
Riders this past week: 37,514
Rider miles this past week: 122,812

DOWN IN THE TUBE
Composer Sheldon Harnick and his wife, Margery, were seen traveling from Quogue to Southampton last Wednesday evening. They said they were on their way to the East Hampton Cinema to see Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles, a documentary about the making of the wildly successful Fiddler on the Roof all those years ago for which Harnick composed the music. Also with them was Rita Lerner, co-executive producer of the film and Authors Night official Patti Kerner. Steven Gaines, author of Philistines at the Hedgerow, was seen heading from Montauk to Amagansett.

FLOODING DELAY
Service on the E Line between Noyac and North Sea was delayed last Friday so our underwater diving crew could clear the flooded tunnel conditions after that big rainstorm by wading through waist-deep water to pull out the drain plug on the floor there to let all the water out.

ELECTION SHENANIGANS
As the annual election to elect a new Subway Commissioner is scheduled for two weeks from today, there has been quite a ruckus involving the two candidates—Commissioner Bill Aspinall, who is seeking his 14th term in that office, or his challenger, Giuseppi Sigliori, the barber in the Hamptons Subway Headquarters building in Hampton Bays, who is the perennial challenger every year and always loses. This time, it’s been revealed by a whistleblower that Commissioner Aspinall has been found to have phoned the New York State Barber’s License Commission and demanded they investigate Sigliori and find him guilty of paying off somebody to get his license renewed so now it can be canceled, or he, Aspinall, will cut ties with the Commission and get barber supplies from somewhere else. Giuseppi, a well-loved employee of Hamptons Subway, has retaliated by giving Commissioner Aspinall’s 15-year-old son a mohawk. Be sure to vote.

SECURITY
Subway riders will discover on Monday that they will have all their bags searched before being allowed through the turnstiles everywhere on the system. This new wrinkle has nothing to do with passenger safety. It is designed only to look for burglar tools that might be used by computer hackers to bring down the accounting system of the Hamptons Subway. Computer hacking and disabling Hamptons Subway is against the law, and people found trying to perpetrate such an activity will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Also, we have a backup system for accounting, where ledgers, parchment and quills are used. And that, we are told, is safe.

MAMA MIA
Subway-goers were astonished last week to see an old man playing a violin while sitting on the concrete platform of the Westhampton Beach station, with a hat in front of him for donations, leap up and reveal himself as the great rapper Jose G himself. G threw away the cardboard and the blanket he was wrapped up in to conclude the making of a music video of his new song “Mama Mia Me-Mia.” Cameras rolled. We had given him permission to make this video and the crowd on the platform was for the most part glad to know they were going to be seen in it. (A sign noting they agreed to be in it without pay unless they objected was on one of the turnstiles.) What a surprise.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
Our night cleaning crew last Thursday discovered a rusty door in the tunnel wall between Southampton and Bridgehampton and say they are afraid to open it. We expect to open it to see what’s behind it on Halloween night in two weeks. Spooky. Please don’t forget to vote.