Dan's Papers - March 13, 2009 - The Hampton Subway Club Newsletter

There was a delay on the Southampton platform as subway riders stopped to watch the arrest of a four-piece jug band playing by the turnstiles without a permit. Had they had a permit, they would have been legal. But they didn't.

President Barack Obama did not visit the Hampton Subway system last week. At the last minute, his staff called to say that he had a bigger problem in Washington than he thought, and the visit would have to wait another week. Actor Richard Gere was on the Water Mill platform last Tuesday morning, but wouldn't say where he was headed. It was 11:40 a.m. and he got on a train.

Tommy Grits, 16, of Amagansett was mobbed by officials of the Hampton Subway system at 4 p.m. last Tuesday as he stepped off the train onto the Amagansett platform to be told he was the one millionth subway rider. The officials took him to our Hampton Bays headquarters to be honored as our one millionth subway rider.

"This is a great honor for you," Commissioner Aspinall told Grits, as he presented the teenager with the big silver FOUNDERS CUP, with the name of Ivan Kratz, the long dead builder of the subway, engraved on it in his very own handwriting. The band played. A small crowd of onlookers - it had happened so fast that few knew of the ceremony - clapped and cheered.

Grits just said a few words. He thanked everybody. Then he said he had to get home because he had been sent out by his mother to Kmart in Bridgehampton to get diapers for his baby sister and his mother would probably wonder what happened to him. He held up the diapers. People cheered the diapers.

Commissioner Aspinall's trip to Washington was not in vain after all. Last month, at Reagan Airport, the Commissioner left the suitcase filled with the $200 million bailout money on a bench at the gate, only remembering it after the plane had taken off. It was returned yesterday, with all the money intact, by Adrian Bigelow, an honest woman who is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and who found the suitcase later in the day.

"I really wondered who had lost this," she said. "There was no note. Just the money inside. I kept it in the garage. I knew somebody would claim it. Then I heard it was lost by this Mr. Aspinall."

The Board of Directors, after a full day of debate, voted to give Bigelow a $50 reward for her honesty. The vote was 3 to 2.

We are most relieved to have back the money that the government had given to us for our subway in our time of need. It will be put to good use. As you probably know, our project to build a spur from Sag Harbor to Foxwoods has stalled under Long Island Sound, not on account of finances, but because of a natural disaster - the unstoppable and unexpected gusher of oil from below the seabed floor into the tunnel.

We will clean this mess up with this money. And then hopefully, with a further cash injection, we will start up this tunnel construction once again and complete the project, even if it means taking a wide detour around the oil strike, which could take it on a great arc as far west as Port Washington before continuing on to Foxwoods. We will not be deterred.