The Hamptons Subway Newsletter August 23–30

Was that Steven Spielberg riding underground last week?

Riders this past week: 13,812

Rider miles this past week: 141,812

DOWN IN THE TUBE

Steven Spielberg was seen taking the subway from Bridgehampton to East Hampton last Thursday morning. Just after the train slowed to a crawl at Wainscott, however, he hopped off the moving train at the closed Georgica Station.

CINNABUN OR SALADS?

There’s only one restaurant down on each of the subway platforms—the appropriately named Subway Deli. But last week Commissioner Aspinall ordered that a second restaurant be authorized. Two contenders emerged. One is the restaurant Cinnabun, which serves donuts, crullers, fried food and ice cream sodas. The second is Green Pastures, which serves salads, fruit, skim milk and clear soup. Aspinall ordered the Board of Directors to taste the offerings at this morning’s board meeting, and choose the winner. The members ate and then voted in secret, but unanimously, for Cinnabun. Hooray for Cinnabun!

THE RUNNING OF THE HORSES

The annual Hampton Classic Horse Show Drive took place on Wednesday night. At 2 a.m., when the subway is closed, all the horse trailers assembled at the Westhampton subway stop at Gabreski Airport, where eight cowboys, hired from the Cheyenne Ranch in Wyoming for the occasion, herded the horses down the escalators to the platform and off on a run through the tunnels to Bridgehampton where they arrived at 6 a.m., just before the subway system reopened. Though the horses were frisky after their stampede, they were taken up and out to the street where the owners saddled them up and rode them up Snake Hollow Road to the horse show grounds.

When noses were counted, however, it was found that there were two horses more than when they had started. The two extra horses were winnowed out during the remount. There were no riders for these two, one a polo pony, and the other a quarter horse from a local horse farm. Both seemed confused. Now we are trying to figure out how they got into the subway system and who they belong to.

MAN CAUGHT IN TURNSTILE

A heavyset man trying to catch a train on the Amagansett platform got himself stuck in the turnstile. He’d put in his swipe card, the transaction went through, and he pressed forward to a spot where half his body was through and the other half not, and one of the barrier blades pinned him between his legs.

Several straphangers failed to get him free. Hamptons Subway personnel were unable to, either. The Amagansett Fire Department also could not get him out. Numerous reporters and broadcasters then arrived to interview him. The man was friendly enough. He said he was Phillip P. Jameson of Corona, Queens, and he was trying to get out to the end of the line at Westhampton, where he had parked his car. After a while, good Samaritans got him a Coca-Cola from the Subway Restaurant on the platform. Also a turkey hero with cranberry sauce, which Jameson declared delicious. Eventually, 10 men were able to disassemble a “Jaws of Life” tool, carry it piecemeal down the escalator so they could rip the turnstile out. After that, Jameson thanked everybody and then went on his way.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

Our thanks to all the people who helped Mr. Jameson get free of the turnstile in Amagansett last Wednesday. We’ve arranged a one year free pass for him. Mr. Jameson will no longer need to use the turnstile, he will just have to present the pass and go in using the emergency out door.