No One Used New Hamptons Subway Terminal

SCENE ON THE SUBWAY

Venus Williams was seen on the subway heading from Sag Harbor to Noyac. She was wearing really neat tennis wear. Someone said she was on her way to a party to launch her new clothing line.

DELAY WEDNESDAY

There was a long delay on Wednesday afternoon in Southampton when one of our subway trains failed to back up. The motorman, Ennis Ennison, who has been with us a long time and should have known better, tried to back up the train a short distance because he thought he had overshot the station. What he forgot is that four years ago, he had purposely detached the reverse gear on this particular train – we like for our motormen to have the same trains every day – so he could not back up. He had done that because the day before, four years ago, he had backed into a train behind him and said that would never, ever happen again. So now, when he needed it, having forgotten that, he jammed it into reverse and stripped all the gears going both forward and backwards and so could not move. It took nearly two hours to get it all sorted out. Ennison is in the hospital, highly medicated to numb the effects of what is diagnosed as SPA – Severe Personal Anguish – with complications caused by a hairline fracture in his gear-shifting arm.

KIDS EVENT PROBLEMS

Hamptons Subway’s new marketing woman Liz Albatross, hired just last week, had a surprise for our Commissioner Bill Aspinall when he came home from his two-week vacation in France. To show what she could do, she had organized, promoted and held the first kids program ever on a subway system platform, which consisted of escalator races for kids 4 to 10 up and down from the street to the East Hampton platform, and also time trial bannister slides on those escalator handrails afterwards. The races did disrupt access to the station for an hour, but the kids loved it. The winners all got gift certificates (non-transferable) entitling them to two-scoop chocolate ice cream cones with sprinkles every single day for a year at the Bridgehampton Candy Kitchen. Although four kids were injured and two taken to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital suffering palpitations (they’re fine), Ms. Albatross declared the event a huge success and promised to hold it again next year. After he got home from Paris, however, the commissioner fired Albatross. A search is underway for a new marketing director, which will be the 14th since the beginning of the year, a record.

NEW RULES FOR MUSICIANS

Musicians using the subway system must now comply to new rules. Instrument cases must not be more than 5 feet high and 3 feet by 2 feet in the other dimensions. That tuba caught in the turnstile in East Hampton last week is not something that Commissioner Aspinall wants to see happen again.

SWIPE CARDS COMING SOON

As many of you know, our order of the new Hamptons Subway swipe cards was sent to the wrong subway system – it wound up in Dallas and later, Montreal – and so we ran out last Thursday, resulting in some inconveniences here and there which we deeply regret. The order, rerouted, should be here by Monday. Until then, if your old swipe card is down to zero, just tell the token clerk, pay her the $2.75 and she’ll let you hop over the turnstile during these next few days.

WAINSCOTT STATION CLOSED

As you may know, a new station was put in last November at Wainscott between Georgica and East Hampton at the request of those living there. No one used it, however, it was just there. In fact, those who requested it now posted guards so only people living in Wainscott could use it, but since none of them did, Commissioner Aspinall has closed the ticket booth and the platform for “repairs.” It was considered by the ticket booth ladies to be the most lonely assignment.

THE G TRAIN

Straphangers recently took an internet poll and voted the G Train to be the most efficient, well-kept and on-time train line on the Hamptons Subway System. There is no G Train and the management of Hampton Subway doesn’t think that this joke, if this is supposed to be a joke, is very funny.

ANNUAL REPORT

The annual report of the Subway System is out next week. As usual, however, it is only going to be presented to investors since the Hamptons Subway is privately owned and nobody else is allowed to know what is going on.

COMMISSIONER BILL ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

Wonderful memories of these recent two weeks that my wife and I enjoyed in Paris and along the Riviera on this latest subway business trip. The commissioner of that system, Pierre LaGrande-Pic, took us around, and through an interpreter told us that the subway is called Le Metro. I learned a great deal about their system. One of the most wonderful things about it is the art deco style of the signage and entrance canopies at many stations, which gives the names of the stations to the pedestrians as they wander by in the most exuberant style and, always, in French! I wonder if we could have something like that – “Le Amagensatte” Maybe subway entrance signage in the shape of windmills, as I saw at Moulin Rouge in Montmartre. Ah, Monmartre!

And now I’m off to Washington to visit with my good friend Le Donalde who visited Switzerland while we were in France. Our tete-a-tete will be about his buying Hamptons Subway for necessary American defense against enemies below.