Voice of Hamptons Subway TV Show Canceled, Announcer Search Continues

SEEN ON THE SUBWAY

Amagansett’s Paul McCartney together with his wife Nancy Shevell were seen heading westbound on the train leaving Sag Harbor for Noyac last Thursday afternoon. McCartney was carrying his guitar, Shevell was carrying a folding chair. Drew Barrymore was seen waiting for a train at the Sag Harbor station about noon on Wednesday. Andy Cohen, carrying a bookbag of hardcover books titled The Year I Grew Up, was seen climbing the escalator to the sidewalk by the Montauk Lighthouse. Hoping to put them in the exhibit there, perhaps? Hugh Jackman was seen looking at his watch at 10 p.m. on the Southampton platform.

NEW STATION

Hamptons Subway is pleased to announce the imminent opening of a new subway stop at the eastern terminus of Sunrise Highway where it meets up with County Road 39.

“Hamptons Subway has been in the forefront of transportation on the South Fork, helping to get people to where they need to go in the Hamptons since its beginnings,” Commissioner Aspinall said. “And so it should come as no surprise that Hamptons Subway will do its part to help ease traffic on County Road 39 by adding an 18th stop just a short walk from the Dan’s Papers offices across from Manna at Lobster Inn. Motorists can leave their cars there in the big lot we are building. And then they can take the subway.”

The building of the 18th stop and underground track tunnel leading to it have been going on since it was announced one year ago that Suffolk County intends to add sidewalks along both sides of the county road, severely pinching traffic for at least a year.

“This gave us a year to do this,” he said. “We have completed the platforms and tracks at the new station and are now installing the escalators and should have that done by the end of the week. After that, all that is left to do is break through to ground level and the parking lot.”

Aspinall said he was amused by the fact that a huge 200-acre parking lot capable of holding 4,000 cars had been built in a former potato field on the south side of Sunrise Highway there and nobody seemed to know why it was there.

“Surprise!” he laughed.

Motorists heading eastbound will be able to exit Sunrise at the parking lot, go down into the station and board right there. Aspinall acknowledged that the station is not in the direct line with all the other stations.

“County Road 39 had not been built when the Hamptons Subway was built all those years ago,” he said. “They did originally build a Shinnecock stop down on Hill Street by the Shinnecock Indian Nation, which does us no good to help County Road 39. Our new Sunrise station will therefore be a feeder station. People will take the subway — it will be a shuttle, just like the Times Square Shuttle in New York — south to the old Shinnecock station to transfer without charge to the main line going from Westhampton to Montauk. The transfer is free. And so, passengers can go anywhere along the line — Montauk, Amagansett, East Hampton, Sag Harbor, Bridgehampton, Water Mill, Southampton, Hampton Bays, Quogue and Westhampton Beach — with minimum time and effort.

“Hamptons Subway hereby joins the Hampton Jitney and the Long Island Rail Road in doing our part in the effort to get folks off County Road 39 while they make the necessary repairs there, whenever they eventually start with the sidewalk program.

FOX DROPS VOICE OF THE HAMPTONS SUBWAY SHOW

The half-hour weekly show Voice of the Hamptons Subway has been canceled after three episodes due to poor ratings.

The show came into existence after a competition here in the Hamptons, to select the new voice of the Hamptons Subway, was begun to replace Gladys Gooding, the Hampton Bays resident who had spoken “Please watch the closing doors” and “Next stop Amagansett,” etc. who, after just two weeks on the job, died on June 12 after an enthusiastic fan raced to embrace her on the platform at Southampton, causing both women to fall onto the tracks in front of the Montauk Local. Both women died.

The competition had been underway for just one week here at our Hampton Bays headquarters, when Fox expressed an interest in the show and subsequently bought it. It began on Wednesday evening just after Kitchen Disasters, which has excellent ratings and has been on for almost a year. The plunge in ratings for You Can Be the Voice of Hamptons Subway after Kitchen Disasters was at first attributed to the newness of the show. But after a second last-place finish at that time slot the following week, yesterday it was announced that the show would be canceled. It will be replaced by a so-far-unnamed show where large men attack one another with clubs for money.

In any case, 13 of the original 16 contestants, all of whom live in the Hamptons, and who were not among the three who were eliminated that first and second week, remain stranded in Hollywood.

Subway Commissioner Aspinall’s daughter June, 18, the first contestant to be eliminated, is back at home here in Southampton however, so she is not stranded in Hollywood. And at least temporarily, she will now become the Voice of the Hamptons Subway, since her audition tapes made at LTV here in Wainscott remain available, and there will apparently be no winner selected from among the other 13 applicants.

OTHER SUBWAY NEWS

NUMBERS: 17,212 riders used the Hamptons Subway during this period. This was up 3,213 from last year.

CLOSURES: The track between Bridgehampton and East Hampton will be closed for regular maintenance on July 22 from 2–5 a.m. Riders are urged to find alternate transportation during these hours.

BIRTHDAYS: Token Clerk Allison Gaines, July 22. Conductor Rae McMannus, July 23.

THANKS to the Jim Turner Band for its two-hour performance on the Southampton platform to entertain Fred Thogfeller on his 100th birthday party held on the easterly end of the platform there.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK: Track Maintenance Foreman Jeff “Hoots” Oakland.