Endangered Species Found in Hamptons Subway Tunnels

SCENE ON THE SUBWAY

Steven Spielberg and his wife Kate Capshaw were seen boarding a westbound train from Montauk last Thursday night. Kelly Bensimon was on the eastbound platform in Quogue on Tuesday afternoon. Liev Schreiber and Colin Jost were seen in animated conversation heading down the escalator at the Southampton station on Monday.

THE TURKEY STAMPEDE

A new charity event, called the “Turkey Stampede”, was held last Wednesday night after closing time, at 2 a.m., with a shepherd from the old country using a switch to keep the turkeys moving through the tunnels down the tracks from Westhampton to Montauk, arriving there just before opening time at 6 a.m. Each turkey got friends to donate so-much-a-mile for the effort and the money will be donated to one or another of the charities out here. Nearly a thousand turkeys participated.

The event did cost the job of Nick “Frank” Frankenstorm, our new public relations and marketing director, however. It was supposed to be heavily promoted beforehand and it wasn’t. The straw that may have broken the camel’s back was that the event should have been in last week’s newsletter, but even that wasn’t done, so nobody showed up to watch. Also, as we write this, on Thursday afternoon, errant turkeys are still being rounded up here and there.

FLOOD PROTECTION

The subway is a sealed underground system. So the only way a surge of floodwater could get into it would be for the water to get down the subway stairs. As a result, an attempt is being made to design a system that could prevent that from happening by plugging them up. Hamptons Subway engineers are now working with car manufacturers in Detroit to design an enormous airbag – we would need 14 of them for all 14 entrances – that could be installed in the ceilings above the tops of the stairs so that, at the press of a button, they could inflate and seal the entrance watertight. The button would have to be well hidden, of course.

CAROLYN ASPINALL TURNS 9

A huge birthday party for Carolyn Aspinall, the Commissioner’s daughter, was held simultaneously on all five floors of the subway headquarters in Hampton Bays last Monday at noon, with all employees of the subway company, bearing gifts. This accounts for why the system was closed between 12 noon and 3 p.m. that day, in case you didn’t see the signs down on all the platforms about it.

Five birthday cakes were baked and brought in, one on each floor, and Carolyn happily ran up and down the stairs blowing out the candles on each one after another. It sort of reminded everybody of Eloise, I think that’s her name, who runs around the Plaza.

Carolyn is the darling of the subway system. She may not come by the office often – she did once last year – and her personal limo with driver prevents her using the subway as much as she might like, but we love her anyway. What’s it feel like to be 9? People asked her – a silly question – since everybody who works here was 9 at one point or another.

MARATHON SUBWAY RIDER

You may have seen a young woman, Stefanie Gray, riding the Hamptons Subway here for long periods of time going round and round. Ms. Gray is training for her big attempt, next week, of riding all the subways in Manhattan one at a time without coming up to the street to see if she can break the Guinness Book of World Records which is 22 hours, 52 minutes and 36 seconds. She has to take every subway there is, stop at every stop on every line, and it doesn’t matter in what order she does it. One part of her training consisted of riding around and around on the Hamptons Subway for 23 hours, which she did from Wednesday afternoon to Thursday morning.

ENDANGERED SPECIES

Environmentalists have discovered two groups of animals on the endangered list living in our tunnels. One group consists of a den of rare Bavarian tunnel rats who have been located in a storage room on the north side of the tunnel connecting Water Mill and Bridgehampton. Another group consists of a kettle of flightless black saber-toothed hawks who have been found living in a storage room on the south side of the same tunnel, directly across from the rats.

At the present time, the two groups are fighting with one another on the tracks between them in some kind of territorial dispute. As they are endangered species, no humans are allowed to interfere, touch or harm them. So the fight goes on. The environmentalists are just hoping and praying that one or the other of the groups is not completely wiped out. These are the only two places these species are known to exist.

TRAINS COLLIDE

At 4 a.m. in our railroad yard in Montauk, a motorman was driving a subway car when the brakes failed and it hit the back of another subway car parked ahead. Both cars suffered minor damage, and the motorman was uninjured. The brakes are being fixed.

COMMISSIONER BILL ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

Commissioner Aspinall is off on vacation in the Turks and Caicos this week.