Hamptons Subway Gives Lifetime Passes to 100-Year-Olds

SCENE ON THE SUBWAY

Filmmaker Lena Dunham was seen on the subway going from Bridgehampton to Water Mill last Wednesday morning. She was licking a coffee chip ice cream sugar cone which she said she’d gotten at the Candy Kitchen after she ate her breakfast and please don’t tell her mother.

LVIS IMPROVES SUBWAY CARS

Several members of the Ladies Village Improvement Society of East Hampton came down to the platform in that town with curtains and vases of flowers to put on the 9 a.m. train as it came through, as a form of beautification. They stopped and posed for photographers and so missed the 9 a.m., but did do the same to the next. As had been previously arranged, the train remained in the station for 60 seconds instead of the usual 30. The women raced in and placed their beautification things and got back off in time, then seemed sad when the train pulled out heading west, since it would no longer be in East Hampton. Two of the women did stay for an hour and ten minutes to see the same train come through again, which it did, still decorated with the flowers and curtains, although by this time the flowers were askew.

TILE FALLOUT

A 3-inch square white tile that had been glued to the ceiling of the subway tunnel at the western entrance of the Southampton station fell last Wednesday at 4:35 p.m., just missing an eastbound train as it arrived from Hampton Bays expecting to continue on to Water Mill. The tile hit the platform four feet from the train   no one was near it – but the sound of it startled three of the five riders on the train who were getting off at the Southampton station. All three complained to the token clerk, who then referred them to subway headquarters in Hampton Bays where they later filed a complaint.

“What if it had hit one of us?” said a woman named Marsha Bloom of Mecox to Operations Manager Jay Green when she got there. “It was bad enough that it frightened us as it did.”

Commissioner Bill Aspinall, after hearing about what happened, announced the following action.   He said that pieces of the tile would be examined to see if the glue that had held it to the ceiling was old and dried out or if some other trauma had caused it to fall.   He also sent a letter of apology to all the people who had complained.

“The subway takes this very seriously,” he said. “No one should have to be startled while riding the Hamptons Subway.”

It was determined the next day that this was an original ceiling tile placed up there when the subway system was built in 1932. It had remained intact all these years.   “But I was concerned that the glue of this tile and the others like it up there has never been checked before this,” the commissioner said. He ordered all the ceiling tiles removed within ten feet of the errant one, and all of them reglued, a process which will take about three weeks. He also ordered that nylon nets be placed under the ceilings of the subway tunnels throughout the system until such time as tests can be completed to see if further action is needed. At the same time, he ordered an increase in the fare for the subway from $2.75 a ride to $2.85 a ride, “to cover the cost of the ceiling tile scandal solution,” he said.

FREE LIFETIME PASSES

As a special promotion this month, the subway system is offering free lifetime passes to anyone who has achieved the age of 100 and has the documents to prove it.   The offer ends on Nov. 29, so if you are in this category, hurry.   Pick up your free lifetime pass at any ticket booth.

DERAILING DELAY

The whole subway system was backed up in a big traffic jam for 20 minutes last Wednesday afternoon at 3 p.m., when a train, rounding the bend at Trout Pond in Noyac, went off the rails and came to a halt. This is the first derailment since the system was built in 1932. Fortunately, however, when it was originally built, it included big steel hooks on heavy rolled-up wire every 50 feet in the ceiling of the tunnels to deal with just such contingencies. The conductors only had to climb up onto the roof of the lead car, locate the nearest hook, pull it out to unspool the wire, attach it to the steel handle atop the lead car, press the button and watch as the device lifted the car and put it back on the track properly.

OCCUPY HAMPTON SUBWAY

Two dozen members of Occupy Hamptons Subway boarded the subway at the Hampton Bays station last Thursday at 2:32 p.m. with signs reading “We are the 99%” and have been riding around on that train ever since. They’ve apparently dispersed themselves three to a car since our trains are eight cars long. Straphangers are advised to leave them be since they are only expressing themselves as is their right in this country in the land of the free.

CAFETERIA CUTBACKS

In keeping with the new cutbacks by management on the Hamptons Subway, the employee cafeteria in our Hampton Bays office will not have food service on Tuesdays. The cafeteria will be open; however, and any employee who wishes to do so may bring in their own food and eat it there.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

Hamptons Subway welcomes members of the Occupy Hamptons Subway group. They may ride the trains around and around the system as long as they don’t poke anybody in the eye with their signs.