Hamptons Subway Ridership Is Way Up in Fall

SEEN ON THE SUBWAY

Jerry Seinfeld and Britney Spears were seen on the East Hampton platform last Tuesday afternoon, one going east, one west, we are not sure who was going which way. Beth Stern was seen coming down the escalator carrying a small Chihuahua dog in a canvas bag with its head peeking out.

NEW SUBWAY MAP

Kudos to a genius named Eli Shapiro, who has finally, at long last, been able to determine precisely what all the local and express subway lines on the system are, where they connect to one another, which ones are spurs and which ones are transfer locations, and how you might get from one community to another without having to memorize how to do it, which many people currently do. It is clearly explained on the new subway map, which Shapiro sketched out for us and then drew, which is now on two-by-three-foot metal signs on all the platforms and in each subway car and finally, here, at the top of this newsletter, printed on paper instead of metal.

Until now, the complexity of the system has baffled all those who made prior attempts to create a map describing it. As a result, all prior maps just indicated a straight line with all the stops in a row from Montauk to Westhampton.

The reason no accurate map could be produced until now was the fact that the subway system had been built secretly underground in 1927 and no map of it was ever found. It’s a strange thing. The man who built it was a crook who bilked the city of New York out of millions of dollars by getting the contract to build the Lexington Avenue Line in Manhattan, buying the subway building material and then allegedly losing it and having to charge the city again to replace it.

Meanwhile, he secretly transported the lost building material out to the Hamptons where he hid it underground in the form of a subway system, hoping later on to announce it and make a fortune running it. He failed, went to prison and died there. And when the subway was accidentally uncovered in a Superfund dig in Sag Harbor in 1997, it was anyone’s guess as to how it all worked. There was no map. And so it was just by guess and by gosh. Thus the old rough maps.

Eli Shapiro, recommended to us by others who knew him from the New York City Think Tank he founded, came out east, rode around on all the subway routes and, in 10 quick minutes, drew the map of how it would all work. Then, like the Lone Ranger, he rode off on his horse (a Lamborghini), leaving behind a silver bullet. All our riders are relieved. And our hat is off to him.

HAMPTONS SUBWAY TO BE SOLD? NOPE.

Our commissioner hotly denies that the Hamptons Subway system is in negotiation with a well-heeled corporation to sell the property. Also denying it are executives from Your Luxury Services, a company that owns numerous trollies, charter planes, moving stairs and hotels around the world. The amount being bandied about is $356 million. “Not likely,” says Aspinall.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

There is so much talk this week. Subway for sale? Hamptons Subway is not for sale. Other rumors that North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un was in the Deluxe car, confused and speaking a foreign language while trying to locate somebody named Vladimir Tutin, set us off on a thorough search, which in the end, turned out to be a waste of time.

About the Deluxe cars: They are at the front, followed by seven regular cars constantly on the move 20 hours a day — we shut down from 2–6 a.m. for routine maintenance. Aware of the popularity of the Deluxe service, we will, next week, add two more Deluxe cars on each route, and at the same time remove two of the regular cars in the back because of the declining service there. So no new passenger cars will have to be ordered.

One of the two new Deluxe cars will be decorated in the French style, while the other will be in the Imperial Russian style, to complement the gold-leaf decoration of the lead cars, which are all in the English Victorian Wimbledon style.

Also, users of the Deluxe service should now note that the motormen there are all dressed in smart new uniforms, designed by the same fashion house that provides uniforms for the crew of the Cunard Line.

IN MEMORIAM

My personal condolences go to the family of the 52-year-old man who decided to stand up while going through the thunder and lightning storm last Thursday while aboard the amusement ride called the Spielberg Drop that my brother Biff and I own in the subway tube that used to connect Shinnecock with Lobster Inn. Five minutes of silence will be observed in the ticket office every Thursday at 4:32 p.m. for the next month in his memory. The ride was delayed for half an hour so his body could be removed, a short delay that the crowds took with some good humor.

Boy, what a busy week.

HAMPTONS SUBWAY RIDERSHIP SOARS

Record numbers of people used the subway system this past week. The total, 18,212, is more than double the total of last week, a record for any week in the month of September on the system since the subway’s founding in 1999, and nearly what we normally expect at the height of the summertime.

The soaring numbers have been entirely due to the Deluxe service, now in its third month, offered to those chosen few who can afford the very best in the first car only on each of the subway lines. Ridership on the rest of the train has slumped, as commuters and locals have just gotten pretty disgusted with all the hoopla going on up front and the delays that it has caused, and have for the most part found other means of getting around the Hamptons.

“I propose they just unhook that front car and leave it in the station not going anywhere, so the rest of us can go back to getting where we have to go in a reasonable amount of time,” said one commuter.