Dan's Papers - August 15, 2008 - The Hampton Subway Newsletter

Gwyneth Paltrow took the subway from Amagansett to Sag Harbor on Thursday. Separately, and in another car on this train, Alec Baldwin was seen reading a script for an upcoming TV show, but his thumb was over the name. On the platform in Montauk were Paul Simon, Peter Beard and local cowboy Rusty Leaver, looking at their watches for a train that would take them, obviously, west.

Apparently, the existence of 600 million old subway tokens, now worth $1 each in Basinoba, Africa, where Hampton Subway tokens are pegged to the dollar as that nation's currency, have caused a terrible disaster.

The tokens are in the hold of a large barge that sunk two months ago as it passed through the jetties at Sag Harbor, on its way from the great vaults of the Hampton Subway system in Hampton Bays, where the tokens were stored, to Basinoba.

Apparently, scuba divers with flippers have been down there with buckets and shovels, stealing a few hundred of the tokens from the ocean floor. Their activities had gone unnoticed. However, on Saturday, a landslide of tokens in the hold of the sunken barge apparently buried Christopher Darlington of Noyac up to his waist, as he was busy shoveling. By the time three of his fellow thieves got him out, he was in a desperate condition.

The Sag Harbor Fire Department responded to the call with one of their fireboats. And the Sag Harbor ambulance has taken Darlington to the hospital, where we will pray for him.

Our electricians are proud to announce that all the damage done to the lighting system in the tunnels by the double-deckers has now been fully repaired. The new bulbs are 20 percent brighter than the old, but use 10 percent less electricity.

The subway tunnel being dug from Sag Harbor to Foxwoods in Connecticut is proceeding, but slower than expected due to a minor seepage problem. Deep under Long Island Sound now, the drillers are finding some sort of thick, black, gooey liquid seeping in from the walls. It is being vacuumed up and analyzed by a lab nearby. Meanwhile, the drilling has slowed by half.

I am up in Foxwoods this week doing research on the gaming facilities there in anticipation of the arrival of the subway tunnel from Sag Harbor. This tunnel will be the second-longest underwater tunnel in the world, exceeded only by the Cross Channel Tunnel built a few years ago to connect England and France. Let me tell you, as Foxwoods will soon only be a short, 30-minute, high-speed subway ride away from the big spenders in the Hamptons, I think the cost of this tunnel will be paid for in weeks. What a place this is.

On another note, I would like to express my condolences to the Darlington family. That their son was a crook and is guilty of breaking and entering and robbery is separate from the fact that he was otherwise a nice young man. We wish him a speedy recovery.