The Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of April 27 – May 1, 2012
Riders this week: 12,912
Rider miles this week: 103,443
DOWN IN THE TUBE
Joey Gonzalez from Barry’s Boot Camp was seen on the subway between Bridgehampton and Water Mill. Our source tells us he is looking for a location for his famous workout studio here. He was sitting there, flexing. Also seen on the subway were Jay-Z and Beyoncé, looking fine, traveling from East Hampton to Amagansett.
VANDALISM AT MONTAUK
Graffiti artists dug a tunnel under the barbed wire at 2 a.m. on Thursday, gave Benadryl to the German Shepherds and spray painted one of our subway cars white with pink polka dots. What were these thugs thinking? This is graffiti? Commissioner Aspinall says he is going to take this car out of service until summer when he will use it as the lead car on the new beach spur which takes people from the downtown Southampton station to Cooper’s Beach.
OFFICIAL BIRD
New Marketing Director Carl Besmith, who last week came up with the sensational idea of producing a glossy pamphlet about the subway service, has this week announced, with the Commissioner’s approval, a contest to name the Hampton Subway official bird. Straphangers can vote for either the Common Grey Seagull, the Piping Plover, the Osprey or the Montauk Spotted Owl. Just write down on a piece of paper the name of the bird you wish to vote for and put it in the suggestion box on the wall at any subway platform. At the top of your entry, write the weird, wavy word you sometimes have to write when entering a new password on the Internet to prove you are voting only once. The weird wavy word is posted on a white card, a new one every day, just above the suggestion box.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Our best wishes go to Phillip Abelson, the soft-spoken motorman who guides one of the trains from the motorman’s booth every day for the evening shift Tuesday through Saturday. He is 54, six years from the mandatory retirement age. He’s agreed to come to the cafeteria to share the joy of the day.
AGNES GRETCH ANNOUNCES CANDIDACY
Agnes Gretch, the longtime librarian at the Water Mill library has flung down her gauntlet to announce she will oppose Commissioner Bill Aspinall in the next election for Subway Commissioner. “Mr. Aspinall’s purchase of the New York City Subway System three weeks ago was a mistake I would never have made,” she said. “As Ben Franklin said when he founded Hampton Subway, ‘I Only Have One Life I Can Give for My Country’ and I am prepared to give that life.”
Commissioner Aspinall says that he knows of no policy that requires there be an election for the Commissioner’s post. Hampton Subway is a private firm and he was appointed by the Board of Directors who have the power to hire or fire him. He’s ordered that everything she says be expunged from the records, especially things she has said about him.
COMMISSIONER
ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
The Commissioner is sequestered in New York City with Mayor Bloomberg again for a new round of talks about selling the New York Subway System back to the City. We are told the negotiations have taken an intense but delicate turn, is what the press release says. So there is no Commissioner’s message.