Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Lightbulbs Stolen, Trump Visits & More News from the Tracks

Hamptons Subway riders this week: 4,041
Total rider miles: 51,412

SEEN ON THE SUBWAY

Brooke Shields was seen on the westbound platform filming a documentary about something, she said. This was at 11 a.m. on Thursday. Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, was seen traveling from Noyac to North Sea last Sunday evening. Bridgehampton’s Bethenny Frankel got off the front luxury car at Southampton on Tuesday at 10 a.m.

IN BRIEF

Delays: There were no reported delays this week. This is the seventh week this year out of a total of 48 during which there were no delays.

Appeal to our riders: The police have asked us to put this notice in the newsletter, asking that riders be on the lookout for someone stealing the new lightbulbs from the stations. We are experiencing an upsurge in thefts, possibly because we are now using those new long-lasting, low-wattage bulbs that inhale carbon and exhale oxygen, thus saving the planet. If anyone knows anything about these thefts, please report it immediately to a subway employee.

BREAKING NEWS

The police say a Hamptons Subway surveillance tape shows who the perp is. It was taken at 2 a.m. at our Hampton Bays station and shows a white male with a knit ski cap pulled low over his head bringing an aluminum ladder down to the subway. Although the surveillance camera is not aimed high enough to observe the actual lightbulbs, it does show this man, who appears to be of foreign extraction, climbing up the ladder off the picture and then climbing back down bearing a lightbulb. He puts it in a sack. He does this at several locations. Then he leaves. Anyone observing such a person please report him immediately.

DONALD TRUMP VISITS HAMPTONS SUBWAY

Donald Trump, who was our president and now isn’t only because he has been accused of fraud, was introduced to Commissioner Bill Aspinall by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani of New York. Both were present on the Water Mill platform when Trump gave an off-the-cuff campaign speech to passersby.

“We have to drain the swamp all over again,” Trump said. “Joe Biden is the worst president ever. Under his administration, which was a fraud, as you know, my Drain the Swamp program was disbanded, and from that day to this, the swamp reappeared and accomplishes nothing, nothing. It still is nothing. Consider it. It’s been three years since I told the crowd on January 6 to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell.” And they did.

And so, what has this swampy Democratic useless bureaucracy done about it? It has taken them three whole years before they were able to serve me with an indictment. Three whole years. Paperwork flying everywhere. Nothing done. What a big waste of money. All that time, with all those bureaucrats raking in the money doing nothing, and it’s only now that they’ve figured out what to say about it. Know what can happen if a criminal isn’t caught up with for three years after? It’s a disgrace.”

Afterwards, Commissioner Aspinall said he would consider that the statue to be built on the Westhampton Beach platform now be modeled instead after Mr. Trump.

ANNUAL COUNT THE CARS CONTEST BEGINS

We are beginning our annual Count the Cars program. The question is, how many cars are there on the Hamptons Subway line? Parents are urged to take their children to the Montauk Yard to count them, as they do every year.

There is a good view of the yard, where all the cars are kept, from the brow of Fort Hill Cemetery in front of the Montauk Manor. Through the courtesy of the manor’s management, we have placed a yellow metal bin there that says “Count the Cars” on the side, and children and parents are invited to write their guess on a piece of paper along with their names, addresses and phone numbers, and slip them into the slot on the top of the bin.

The winners get a free ride with the motorman in the front of the lead subway car leaving from Montauk at 5 p.m. on Labor Day weekend. Hint: One-half of all the cars owned by Hamptons Subway are in the Montauk Yard being serviced at any one time. And while in Montauk, drive around and enjoy the facilities. Rent a boat, play miniature golf, go fishing, whatever.

The Montauk Chamber of Commerce has asked us to print this message.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

On a recent trip to see old friends in San Francisco, where I worked as the assistant commissioner to the BART system, I observed various street performers and artists working at the subway stops.

As a result of this, Hamptons Subway is proud to announce the opening of the Subway Gallery at the western end of the platform at our East Hampton station. It will consist of a small area on the platform that will be roped off with the sort of velvet ropes you see in movie theaters, behind which we will have a rotating art show.

The first show, I am excited to announce, will be next Saturday at 5 p.m., when we will serve free wine and cheese and feature the work of the famous Italian sculptor and performance artist Giuseppe de Antonino from Milan, now spending the winter in a barn on the Miller Farm in Water Mill doing his work here.

De Antonino is not only a sculptor, but also a musician, a diarist, an abstract expressionist painter and a choreographer for America’s Got Talent.

I went to his studio last week to see how he is coming along and was met not only by the artist himself, but by his dog Euro and his wife, the Finnish Olympic skater Astrid-Eeva Jarvinen, who served me homemade cakes and herbal tea.

I will not give away what de Antonino is preparing for this show, his first American exhibit, but I will say that he is working on these amazingly beautiful and luminous mountain structures that rise, some of them, to 10 feet in height and appear to be some sort of repetitive objects that look like lightbulbs that he has welded all together. It is quite something.