The Hamptons Subway: Week of March 29 – April 4, 2013

Riders this past week: 9,121
Rider miles this past week: 101,412

DOWN IN THE TUBE
Lorne Michaels was seen on the subway heading from East Hampton to Bridgehampton. Usually in a happy mood, he appeared to be contemplating something serious. Jon Stewart was seen on the subway heading from Amagansett to Napeague, reading a film script, probably the one he has just written and is about to produce.

RIDERSHIP TOPS 100,000 IN APRIL
For the first time in the history of record -keeping on the Hamptons Subway, the number of rider miles during a week exceeded 100,000 in April. Usually ridership begins to top 100,000 miles in late May. The reasons are not clear. But theories abound. Perhaps riders just really enjoy the recently improved service. Perhaps the fact that the Hamptons is economically white-hot has driven people down here. Perhaps people forgot to wear heavy coats, expecting global warming and an early spring, but the cold spell drove them underground. We just
don’t know.

GRUESOME FIND
There are so many storage rooms along the 65 miles of tunnels. Some we haven’t explored at all. Last week, workmen found evidence that a workman during the construction of the subway in 1932 became trapped in a storage room and tried to dig his way out. We found a narrow tunnel dug with a metal file, a chisel and hammer, leading from one storage room almost, but not quite, to safety—short of the main subway tunnel with the tracks in it between Napeague and Montauk by just six inches—and there at the end we found a file, chisel, hammer and a skeleton. We also found an ID necklace. His name is, or was, Bartholomew Bacon-Katz. We Googled him. He was extremely unpleasant and disliked in life. Perhaps he was murdered.

SUBWAY CARS WRAPPED
Under the auspices of our new marketing man Harry Beecham of Findem, Sellem and Foolem, we are now offering to “wrap” individual subway cars to resemble faraway resorts. Why not? No resort is as good as the Hamptons. So it’s no threat. Our first customer is Nome, Alaska. That car is wrapped in scenes of polar bears eating seals, Inuits harpooning eels, igloos and glaciers. The thermostat inside the car is set to 17 degrees below zero. The slogan is NUMB IN NOME. We can’t help it that this place bought the first wrap. Enjoy.

LETTER
Commissioner Aspinall:
No, no, no! Please tell the private owners of the Hamptons Subway not to sell. I like it when local businesses are owned by locals. I have been a Hampy all my life and do not want the local owners of Hamptons Subway to sell out. Actually, I have never met the private owners of the Hamptons Subway. Who are they? Where do they live? Whoever and wherever they are, I think they have worked hard to build what they have and I hope they will continue it just as it is, although it would be nice to have a dining car that served affordable, local wine and a pet-freindly car which could accommodate my precious poodle. Let me think about this
some more.                    —Charkleena von Beech

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
Thank you for your support, Charkleena. See you at the fundraiser. As far as the dead workman in the tunnel goes, we are thinking to make this a haunted walk for the kiddies. The tunnel is narrow but not so narrow for two children to pass each other coming and going. We could charge 15 cents. Make it easy for them.