Hamptons Subway Considers Closing Mecox Station

SCENE ON THE SUBWAY

Jack Nicholson was seen in Amagansett and said he was in town to do scenes for his next movie. It’s always a pleasure to have him out here. Later in the evening, it turned out that it was just somebody dressed up as Jack Nicholson.

SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM COMMISSIONER ASPINALL

There are no subways crashing into one another on Hamptons Subway. But we’ve received hundreds of calls from riders telling us that there are. They’ve seen videos of them online. This has come about because some scammers, who last week contacted us and demanded ransom money or they would disable our company website, have become angry when they couldn’t do it.

We told them they couldn’t do it. There’s nothing to disable. Hamptons Subway collects its money, pays its employees and deals with its bills by having our clerks using fountain pens write entries into ledger books.

So when we told them to go away and bother somebody else, they became angry and had computer designers create this online news site which shows our subway cars crashing into one other causing injuries, damages and lawsuits at all our stations. Apparently it is getting millions of hits, whatever that is. But none of it is true.

You’ll know it because they spell Amagansett “Amigrantsis” and Sagaponack “Sigipuntik.” And their grammar is off. A headline reads “Mostus hits at a Water Mill Stadion. 23 Dies.”

We think it’s Russians. If you come upon these sites, report them to, well, nobody. There are no controls over this.

The government really blew this one when they decided years ago that crying fire in a crowded theater is a right.

So you’re on your own. And hopefully, these fake crashes will go away.

NEW SUGGESTION BOX KIOSK

Because the wooden suggestion boxes we bolt to the subway platform walls keep getting stolen, we have now set up a system whereby riders can make suggestions without the boxes. Go to the laptop kiosks set up along the eastern walls of every platform, enter your password and type in your suggestion. It will be emailed to our main Hampton Bays office where a team of clerks will read them and pass them along to the higher-ups.

HAMPTONS SUBWAY WINS ANOTHER AWARD

Commissioner Aspinall is in Rio de Janeiro this week for the annual Worldwide Subway Council Meeting and is expected to pick up another award for the Best Lighted Subway System, Northeastern United States Region for Cities of Fewer Than 200,000. He won it last year. The trophy is so large that he will have to buy a second first-class seat on the plane for it when he arrives back here next week.

CLOSE MECOX?

A survey is going to begin next week to determine if the subway should close down the Mecox station. Few people use it, and those who do generally go either to Water Mill or Bridgehampton a mile or two west and east. It’s expensive to staff the station, as I’m sure you’re aware. We want to know what people think. Riders will be surveyed by interns with questionnaires at all stations except Mecox next Saturday and Sunday.

EMERGENCY WARNING CHANGED YET AGAIN

A change in the subway system evacuation signal went into effect last Friday. Instead of one hoot of the subway horn for evacuate and two for all clear, it was reversed so that two hoots meant evacuate and one hoot meant all clear. Unfortunately, a bat roosting on the tracks between Southampton and Water Mill elicited one hoot from Motorman Clyde Damswell on the day this went into effect. Everyone in the system except the bat evacuated. With two hoots, the passengers all returned and this time the bat evacuated. As a result of this mixup, this Friday, the rules will be changed back to the way they were before. Three hoots means evacuate, four hoots means all clear. All this is by order of the Homeland Security Advisory Council.

CONGRATS TO THE HAMPTONS’ OWN NY YANKEES BACKUP BATBOY

New Hamptons Subway Marketing Director Sam Loeb says that he was pleased that almost nobody in the Hamptons came to the New York Yankees ticker-tape parade last Wednesday at 8 p.m. on the subway system. The honoree was substitute batboy Jimmy Johnson, a resident of Queens whose parents rented a cabin in Hampton Bays one summer eight years ago when he was nine. Johnson stood inside the last car waving to one and all as it went from Montauk to Westhampton Beach.

“People celebrated the Yankee victory at home on that day,” Loeb said. “And I’m told many of them toasted Johnson at the appropriate time. It’s good that families stayed together.”

The confetti, still in its boxes, awaits another important event.

Loeb’s next project is to organize handcar races on the subway between 2 and 5 a.m. when the subway is closed. Entrants should be in peak physical health. Applications are available at our Hampton Bays headquarters office. The event is scheduled for Friday morning the day after Thanksgiving. “We think this will keep the teenagers off the streets,” Loeb said. First prize is an Xbox.

LOST AND FOUND

Maintenance men in Montauk cleaning the cars late last night came upon a diamond-studded 2008 Philadelphia Phillies World Series ring wedged between the cushion seats in one of the cars. Anyone wishing to claim it please call our Hampton Bays headquarters anytime within the next 30 days. After that, it will be thrown out.

RATE INCREASE

The cost per ride on the subway will increase next Monday from $2.75 to $2.95. Commissioner Aspinall wants riders to know that this increase is not his doing, but is at the behest of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which has asked Hamptons Subway, which is not part of that system, to volunteer 20 cents per ride to help subsidize the losses being incurred by the MTA during this past year.