Hamptons Subway Reports Swipe Surplus

SCENE ON THE SUBWAY

The celebrated documentary producer Susan Lacy was seen on the westbound platform at the Sag Harbor station last Thursday morning, on the phone while she waited. Alec Baldwin was seen Monday afternoon at the Southampton platform heading eastbound with lots of gift-wrapped presents.

TORONTO?

This month, straphangers will notice that two of our subway cars will say Toronto Subway on the side and will have maps inside the cars not of the Hamptons but of the City of Toronto.

It’s not very well known, in fact, we don’t like to mention it except on occasions like this when something requires an explanation, but for each of the last three years, Hamptons Subway has “borrowed” six subway cars from the Toronto Subway System for the four weeks of the holiday season to beef up our fleet. The cars come down in mid-November and are quickly repainted with our subway colors (sand and navy blue) in our Montauk Yards before they are put into service. Then they are repainted with the Toronto colors (black and white) in January and sent back up there. Toronto does this for us for a fee, but they are able to do it because in the holiday season, ridership drops off as people like not going anyplace when the city is buried under ten feet of snow.

In any case, this year we ordered six, but at the last minute learned they had only sent down four and the people in the Montauk yards working on them did not think to report this to headquarters in Hampton Bays. And so it is that at the last minute and just in time, the remaining two subway cars have come down from Canada and immediately are being put into service. So, no, you are not in Toronto. Just brush off the snow, if any.

BOBO WINTERBOTTOM

Beloved motorman Bobo Winterbottom will be 65 next Thursday. A birthday party will be held at the Hampton Bays HQ beginning at 1 p.m. that day. What a happy occasion. Four days later he retires. Happy Birthday, Bobo. Glad we could get that in.

SUBWAY CARDS WINDFALL

A strange thing has happened since we converted from tokens to swipe cards last year. Not all the swipes on each card are used. Apparently people buy the cards, then don’t use them much. In conversations with straphangers, we’ve learned that the cards are being purchased by tourists who, instead of using them, take them home as souvenirs as a reminder of their time in the Hamptons. Can you imagine? They come down to the platforms, buy the cards, then immediately go back up to the street. This is an unexpected windfall of cash for the subway. The old tokens did not have this cachet.

ROBBERY

A masked man stole everybody’s money on one of the subway cars out of Water Mill last Saturday night. This almost never happens because such robbers are so easy to catch. Immediately after the alarms went off, all subway police went to the tops of all the up escalators on the system in wait for this masked man. Within 10 minutes, the man was apprehended as he came up the escalator in Quogue. Apparently, he figured that since he committed the crime in Water Mill heading east, he could get off in Bridgehampton and catch a train the other way going west and come up in Quogue. Wrong. He is currently in the Quogue lockup.

DOG LOST

A fluffy little 2-pound designer dog named Foofie has been lost on the subway. Its owner had the dog in a canvas bag, but it leaped out, skittered across the car floor, went out the sliding door just before it closed and ran off into the crowds on the East Hampton platform at 11 a.m. Thursday. You are not supposed to bring dogs on the subway except in a carrier. The woman let off such a howl as the train headed out toward Amagansett and this is why. Subways do not have reverse. She is offering a $10,000 reward. Call Hamptons Subway at 611-442-8000. She has been fined $50.

AN HONOR

The Hampton Bays Chamber of Commerce is honoring Commissioner Bill Aspinall on Monday, Dec. 9, at 5 p.m. in the Canoe Place Inn dining room, where they will present him with a plaque as “Subway Commissioner of the Year.” He says he will be delighted to see us all there.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

I know I promised this week I would tell the full story about how I was able to snooker Mayor Eric Adams of New York City into buying back the New York City subway system he had sold me in September for $1. But now my agent tells me that Adams sold my account as a book, with the movie rights sold too, so my mouth is sealed. All monies I make will go into the coffers of Hamptons Subway, after I take my cut, of course.