Hamptons Subway Welcomes Kim Jong Un of North Korea

SCENE ON THE SUBWAY

Robert De Niro was seen traveling on the subway with Arnold Schwarzenegger between Wainscott and Sagaponack on Friday afternoon.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

It’s that day for Francine Beckman, the longtime receptionist at the busy switchboard at our Hampton Bays headquarters. Many happy returns.

FILMMAKER TAKEN TO THE HOSPITAL

Famous French filmmaker Francois Ami Francois was taken from the tracks of the Hamptons Subway system between East Hampton and Amagansett to Southampton Hospital at 3 a.m. Sunday.

He had been making a film there. Arrangements had been made with Commissioner Bill Aspinall to film on the tracks between 2 and 5 a.m. at the time when the subway system is closed for maintenance and no trains come through. His film is called Train Coming, actually Ferrocarrell Venez, which is French for “Train Coming.” It is to be a three-hour continuous movie showing no train coming down the tracks for that period of time.

Apparently, one hour into the film, Francois became outraged to see maintenance workers walking the tracks at 3 a.m. checking for debris, effluvia and other litter with those little pointy sticks. He told them to leave and when they did not — they apparently do not understand French — he became even more outraged and agitated and then collapsed.

Paramedics were called and there was difficulty negotiating the unconscious Francois up the escalator on the gurney — his head hit the wall or something and then he fell off and they had to put him back on — but they finally got him to the ambulance and then to the hospital. He is alert and well this morning and is determined to try filming again in a few days.

KIM JONG UN COMING

Kim Jong Un, the supreme leader of North Korea, will be coming to tour the subway next Saturday evening with Commissioner Aspinall as his host. Kim is looking at our system to see if it is something that could be constructed in Pyongyang that could withstand a nuclear attack from America.

Hamptons Subway that day will be festooned with North Korean flags, including down all the tunnels, just in case the supreme leader is riding in the front car after sundown and sees ahead with the headlight from that car. Be on your best behavior. Curtsy if you see him coming, as this is the usual greeting in Pyongyang, we are told.

JACK O’REILLY NAMED EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH

Jack O’Reilly of Mastic-Shirley has been named Subway Employee of the Month. O’Reilly is married with a wife and two children. He has been a flagman working in the tunnel on the approach to the Amagansett stop, westbound, since the subway’s opening.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S WEEKLY MESSAGE

The failure of our maintenance crew to take note of the filming of Train Coming between the Amagansett and East Hampton stations was due to a communications breakdown between my office and the head of the maintenance department, Kim “Mick” O’Reilly, who said he had no idea that that was the day. O’Reilly has now been fired.

The filming of a major work of art from this filmmaker, whose projects are in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Louvre in Paris, is a feather in the cap of Hamptons Subway and certainly more important than just one night’s maintenance between those two stations. What, after all, has happened on that part of the track in recent years? Nothing.

Now the filmmaking will have to be postponed for two weeks as next week we will still be in cleanup mode after the visit of the great leader of North Korea. And this will delay Francois Ami Francois’ return to his beloved France, unfortunately. We can’t seem to ever do anything right around here.