Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of February 13–19, 2015
Week of February 13–19, 2015
Riders this past week: 8,080
Rider miles this past week: 81,411
DOWN IN THE TUBE
Jon Stewart was seen on the subway heading from Bridgehampton to Sag Harbor on Tuesday morning at 11 a.m. At the same hour, Jimmy Fallon was seen on the subway heading from Sag Harbor to Bridgehampton. They might have seen each other when the trains passed one another up near Long Pond, but maybe not.
THE EASTPORT ROUNDTABLE
Not many people know about the abandoned subway station just beyond Eastport at East Moriches. Heading west, you get off the subway at Eastport, cross the platform, and board a fresh eastbound subway going the other way. But where do they turn around? Is this magic? No it isn’t. The turnaround is in the abandoned East Moriches station where a skeleton staff of Hampton Subway employees shepherds the trains around the horseshoe curve there. There is a stop where workmen board the train and clean the floor and seats and gather up any trash that might be found. The train is there for 20 minutes. Then it finishes going around. Our new marketing director, Herb Bentley, today announced a special weekly tour of the turnaround in that station for Sunday at noon. Interested straphangers who want to go will spend $30 to assemble at that hour at the Southampton subway entrance and be bussed down to Eastport, where they can board the westbound train with a guide and enjoy the full experience of the turnaround in East Moriches. With the guide’s introduction, announcements and the brochures to read, the tour lasts for an hour and a half, and you will get to see the picking up of the trash by workmen wearing gloves, the vacuum cleaner crew moving in and out, and the seat and window cleaning crew at work. Tipping is not permitted.
DUNE ROAD SPUR
Since 1995, Hampton Subway has had a plan in place to put a separate tunnel underneath Dune Road the full 14-mile length of the peninsula from Hampton Bays to Cupsogue County Beach in Westhampton Beach. But after meetings with the Army Corp of Engineers recently, we are being forced to put this plan aside as the Engineers intend to buttress Dune Road’s south face with sandbags and the weight would be too great for a tunnel to bear. We will reconsider the project when there is global cooling.
COLD SNAP
The number of riders using the subway declined last week, but the number of rider miles increased. We think it’s because of the cold snap. Riders come down to the heated subway cars, and just take them for a ride to wherever.
CLEANING OUR HEADQUARTERS BUILDING
Workmen who have been sandblasting the concrete work on the outside of the four-story Hampton Subway building on Ponquogue Road in Hampton Bays have on the outside walls uncovered numerous swastika emblems from the original construction in 1934. The Hampton Subway building is the only building in America built by Nazi architect Albert Speer. Based on plans for an office building constructed in Berlin that year, it was quite something in its day. We’ve ordered the swastikas removed and destroyed.
COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
The board of directors of Hamptons Subway received the first draft of an end-of-year report Monday. The numbers show that use of Hamptons Subway increased by 3 percent over the year earlier, but profits were up 17 percent due to the rate increase for riders put in on July 1, 2014 and a drop in maintenance costs by leaving some work undone. We hope for a repeat in 2015.
Vetted Hamptons Resources
