Hamptons Subway Fights to Keep Quogue Stop Open

SCENE ON THE SUBWAY

Former Governor Andrew Cuomo and his brother, TV commentator Chris Cuomo were seen laughing it up on the Sag Harbor platform on Wednesday.  What gives, Guvs? Also seen on the Hamptons Subway this past Friday were East Hampton’s Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld, holding hands as they went from East Hampton to Bridgehampton on Friday.

QUOGUE VOTES TO SHUT ITS SUBWAY STATION

Residents of the Village of Quogue voted yesterday on a referendum to shut their subway stop on the Hamptons Subway. According to early returns, 342 people voted and the total, which is being disputed by former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani who volunteered to oversee the vote count, is 401 yes and 0 opposed.

“I think that it may well be that this voting was not fair and equitable,” Giuliani said after his results were announced. “How can you have more ‘yes’ votes than the total number who vote? And my own spot check, which allowed me to look at five individual votes, tallied 2 yeses and 3 nos.  This requires further looking into.”

The mayor of Quogue, when talking to this reporter, denied any irregularities.  And he was firm on the decision.

“We don’t want that riffraff hopping off the subway trains and bespoiling our local platform,” he said. “Let them get off at either East Quogue or Quiogue,” he continued, referring to the subway stops on either side of Quogue. “They are close enough to one another to make up for not having a stop in Quogue. Let them eat cake.”

When this reporter noted to the Mayor that the Quiogue station has been shuttered for the past three years because only one or two people a day were using it, he said, “We’ll unshutter it.”

A MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR TED MCPHERSON

More than 200 people gathered on the Westhampton Beach platform to pay tribute to Hamptons Subway Manager Ted McPherson, who has been lost and presumed dead somewhere in the bowels of the subway tunnels while trying to drive a subway train to New York City from Westhampton Beach. He had done it two weeks ago after a 2 am accident on New Years Eve in the Queens Subway yard put five MTA cars out of service and there was this big cry for help from that organization. And then just six days later on January 5 he was called upon to do it again by the MTA, this time for six subway cars. Many people were amazed to hear there was a tunnel between Westhampton and New York City. Others said it sounded like the subway had made a turn into the sewer system and he had gone to New York that way. The trip had taken five hours.

In any case, in this latest case, McPherson offered to do it again.  And he hasn’t been heard from since.

Commissioner Bill Aspinall spoke at the Memorial.

“If I had known this was going to happen,” he said, “I would never have sent him the second time.” The Commissioner too was amazed to learn there might be a tunnel.

“At first I fired him for going in without permission,” he said. “Even though the five car gift did not put a dent in our capacity because this time of year many subway cars just sit idle in our Montauk Yards for the winter, and then when I realized what was happening and there was a second need for subway cars, this time six cars, I rehired him and said do it again. The MTA needs us.  They’ll repay the favor sometime when this happens to us.  And its quite a development that we have located a new tunnel. As for my good friend and top employee McPherson, who I was chummy enough with to call him Ted, he was a wonderful, easygoing fellow, a smart and charitable guy, a family man with many friends, and had been with us for three years. Think of him as an astronaut. It’s a dangerous business. And sometimes you go out and you don’t come back. It comes with the territory. He knew about these risks when he took this job. He has given his life for the Subway.”

SUBWAY DELAYS

The new PR Director of Hamptons Subway Fred Applebottom, has sent out a press release asking straphangers to understand that with this second group of trains, there will have to be a larger time gap between trains than normal here in the Hamptons until new trains are ordered, since, perhaps, they are not going to be given back anytime soon. He asks that beginning today  straphangers use that extra time waiting to say a little prayer for Ted McPherson.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

Hamptons Subway is not going to be taking the Village of Quogue’s decision to close the subway stop in that town lying down. If they board it up, we will unboard it. If they throw a chain across the top of the stairs we will cut it. The land that is part of the jurisdiction of the Village of Quogue extends only six feet underground. Under that, the land is owned by the authorities which include Hamptons Subway in the same way that the Federal Aviation Authority owns the air rights above Quogue. Could Quogue make aircraft divert around Quogue? I don’t think so.

Well, they cannot close the subway. And we have a battery of lawyers and subway police who are going to see to that. The trains shall stop at the station. And armed guards will escort them up and down into and out of the Village of Quogue.