Hamptons Subway Newsletter May 24–30, 2013

Riders this past week: 13,822
Rider miles this past week: 128,476

DOWN IN THE TUBE
New York City Mayoral Candidate John Catsimatidis was seen on the Hampton Subway headed from Shinnecock toward Hampton Bays, apparently on his way to a luncheon in his honor in Westhampton Beach last Saturday at noon.

WEDDING BELLS
Here is a first. Many people have gotten married both on the subway platforms or on the subways themselves, but now for the first time, a couple from Bay Shore got married in the employee lounge of the Hampton Subway building on Ponquogue Avenue in Hampton Bays last Monday. The wedding was an elopement, and only friends of the couple attended, so we will keep their names out of the paper until they tell the parents themselves. What we can tell you is that they chose the Hampton Subway Headquarters building because it is the only building in America designed by Hitler’s architect Albrecht Speer, and it seems the couple are big fans of the musical The Producers.

HAMPTON METRO VOTED DOWN
The Hampton Subway Board of Directors voted 5 to 0 NOT to change the name of the system to Hampton Metro at their monthly board meeting on Friday. The board felt that although the name was indeed chic, people might think that Hampton Subway was not Hampton Subway but was, in fact, a soccer team or a night spot. This is the first time in nine years that this board has voted unanimously about anything. Usually there is a lot of contention and yelling when it is vote time.

DELAY IN NOYAC
The Noyac line between North Sea and Sag Harbor will close between 2 and 3 p.m. next Monday. Workers in hazmat suits will be clearing out several nests of Piping Plovers that have been built between the third rail and the tracks. The electricity will have to be turned off so the men won’t be electrocuted while removing the nests, and there will also have to be time to allow the fumes from the pest spray to dissipate. We regret the delay.

NO PUSHERS THIS SUMMER
In summers past, Hampton Subway has hired volunteers, 17 of them, to don boxing gloves, padded vests and helmets to push the crowds of straphangers from the platforms onto the trains. This year, however, after we held our interviews and announced the lucky hires, the 17 pushers got together and, during a rehearsal last Sunday, announced they were now a union on strike and would cease to work until negotiations for pay rather than “the experience of it,” as their leader John Blatt snidely put it, were implemented.

Commissioner Aspinall announced when he heard of this that he would not take this lying down, and he hired a group of scabs to cross the picket line they had set up at the Hampton Bays station, but the pushers would not let them through and then beat them up with their boxing gloves. A negotiation was scheduled, but when representatives of Hampton Subway entered the subway car, they too were beaten up. As a result of this, we are cancelling the summer pushers program. Subway riders, when coming down to the platforms on busy summer days will just have to push themselves onto their subway cars. We regret the inconvenience.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
Hampton Subway will not back down in this fight with the pushers. If you see people in boxing gloves, padding and helmets walking the streets this summer, curse at them.