Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of May 26–June 1, 2017
Week of May 26 – June 1, 2017
Riders this past week: 28,411
Rider miles this past week: 151,422
DOWN IN THE TUBE
Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese were deep in animated conversation aboard the subway heading from Amagansett to Montauk early last Sunday morning. On Tuesday night, Jimmy Buffett, his band and his feathered girl dancers wowed the crowds on the Sag Harbor platform in an impromptu concert. “Fruitcakes” brought the crowd to its feet and the girls threw out little gummy fish, but it all ended when the Subway police came down the escalators to arrest them, and Buffett and his pals made a quick run for it up the adjacent elevator just in time.
FLAGPOLE CEREMONY HALTED
The work day begins at Hamptons Subway every day at 6 a.m. when, in a traditional ceremony, the American flag is raised on the Hampton Bays platform while a bugler from the Shinnecock Coast Guard plays reveille. The ceiling is only nine feet up from the concrete floor on the subway platform, but at that hour the flagpole, which is in its retracted position in a box on the floor, is extended upwards from its box the full nine feet, and then further up into a large air duct and through a grating at ground level then further up 25 feet before it clicks into its fully extended position. Then, down on the platform, the American flag, with great ceremony, is removed from the box and unfolded, attached to the pole and then hoisted up through the ceiling and up into the outdoors to the top of the pole. It waves there, in an empty lot on Main Street, for the rest of the day and evening, visible from the upper floors of the Hamptons Subway building across the street on Ponquogue Avenue all day. It is hauled back down to the playing of reveille at midnight. This ceremony has been performed every day the subway system has been in business.
But yesterday, the owner of the vacant lot filed a lawsuit and got a temporary injunction to shut down the raising of the flag ceremony. He has signed a long term lease with a dentist who has plans to build a dental office on the property and, according to those plans, the rising flagpole could cause a pre-dawn emergency tooth extraction or root canal in examining room B to go awry.
COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
The Hamptons Subway takes very seriously the possibility of computer attacks on our system. For that reason, money has been allocated to preserve our customers’ credit card numbers, identities, personal information and financial information. Also protected are our computerized subway signaling system, subway surveillance cameras, employee information and subway card purchases and sales. With this new financial allocation, we have hired four fully armed guards to stand inside the Subway building at the entry door to the computer room and windows and check the IDs of anyone going in or out of that room. Bags are searched, pat-downs are mandatory, as are the x-ray cubicles which can find, zap and melt any metal objects hidden in orifices
or casually draped upon the skin of any perp it encounters
On another matter, this coming weekend is Memorial Day weekend and the ridership on the subway can double or even triple. As in past years, this increase is way beyond the ability of our employees to keep under control, so whatever happens, just keep in mind that after the weekend is over, things will return to normal and we will be able to provide the proper service again, this time without the delays and breakdowns.
Vetted Hamptons Resources
