DAN'S PAPERS, June 12, 2009 Page 31 www.danshamptons.com
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By Dan Rattiner Week of June 13 – June 20, 2009 Riders this week: 21,322 Rider miles this week: 191,464 DELAY There will be a half-hour delay on the Montauk to Westhampton line next Monday afternoon at 4 p.m. to give our maintenance people the opportunity to go down into the subway tunnel between East Hampton and Wainscott and clean out an infestation of piping plovers. The men will be armed.
open on the subway next week. COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE Those that want to believe the parting between Hampton Subway and Monsieur Le Fix and his bogus operation was amicable should think again. The departure of “Le Sommielle” was anything but. Monsieur Le Fix did not pay his rent. After the first month, paid in cash in Euros, all we
got was checks that bounced. We have five consecutive monthly bounced checks. Monsieur Le Fix’s explanation for this is that he has suddenly, after six months, discovered that the gold leaf letters we painted on the outside of the dining car spell out LE SOMMIELLE, when, in fact, his Paris based operation is actually LE SOMMIELLER. This error of one single letter, he says, was a cause of considerable pain and suffering since for six months, his operation was held up to ridicule because diners would be laughing at him while they ate since he, who did not speak English, did not notice the error. The cost of that ridicule, he said, was not only the five months he owed us, but also an additional five months of future rent, which, he said would therefore leave him there right up to the beginning of (continued on page 37)
DOWN IN THE TUBE Singers Tori Amos and Miley Cyrus, whose competing and very similar albums have been battling for the #1 position on the Billboard charts, got into an altercation with one another on our Quogue platform. Police charged both of them with assault for striking each other with very cute little stuffed animals. TWINS!?? Alice Boontoggle, the token booth clerk at the Noyac platform, left her post Monday at 4:23 p.m. to help straphanger Helen Kazinski give birth there on the platform. Afterwards, apparently encouraged by the success of her effort, Boontoggle herself gave birth at 4:59 p.m., assisted by Georgette Wilson, a summerperson coming down the escalator who said she just happened to be a nurse. Both babies — Tom Wallace Hickenlooper III, 8 pounds, 6 ounces, and Angelina Jolie Kazinski-Cohen, 10 pounds, 5 ounces — are doing just fine, thank you very much. Passersby kept watch on the token booth during the twin affairs to keep those up to no good from cleaning out the till. LA SOMMIELLE IS NO MORE The four-star Michelin French restaurant La Sommielle, which for the past seven weeks has been the “food car” on the Hampton Subway, has ended its lease with the subway just as the summer was getting underway. Monsieur Pepe Le Fix, the manager of the establishment, says that the parting occurred by mutual agreement between the parties and there were no hard feelings. “Things ce n’est pas worked out,” is what he said, smiling and bowing to patrons who discovered the operation to be kaput as they came into the car to get their morning jolt of Le Petit Snort d’Schnappes. (This drink, made with Pernot and coffee, has become a favorite of some of our regulars.) Le Fix was busy with a screwdriver removing some of the restaurant equipment that was installed when he was asked about the departure. The management of the Hampton Subway regrets the departure of Monsieur Le Fix and his operation, but is pleased to announce that a new restaurant, bearing the same name, will
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