Root canal. Meals poisoning from a nasty oyster. For the Hamptons seaside set, there are just a few issues worse than driving east on a Friday afternoon in August. When you get to Southampton, it’s primarily one lane in and one lane out on Route 27. What is often a two-plus-hour drive from Manhattan—relying on which Hampton you frequent—can rapidly turn into a three-plus-hour journey on a Friday.
Now add in a Friday night political fundraiser for Donald Trump, whose latest assassination try prompted requires elevated safety, and also you’ve acquired sufficient gridlock to drive Hamptonites mad. On Friday, Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick hosted the Bridgehampton event, which contributed to unending site visitors from Riverhead to Amagansett that lasted late into the evening, with stories of five-plus-hour journeys in from JFK and town and even the backroads and residential streets being stuffed with automobiles.
“I simply by no means noticed something prefer it,” mentioned Alison P., who works at a Bridgehampton salon and requested that her final identify not be used. “I hope there’s some type of investigation. This was harmful.”
That’s as a result of autos on foremost roads, aspect streets, highways, and every little thing in between had been primarily parked at a useless cease, or inching towards a vacation spot, for hours and hours.
When President Joe Biden visited the Hamptons in late June, his aircraft landed at Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton. However Biden then took Marine One to East Hampton Airport, a brief trip from the place his fundraiser passed off. Nevertheless, whereas Trump landed in Westhampton too—at roughly 5:30 p.m.—his motorcade took him the 25-ish miles to Bridgehampton, the place he arrived about an hour later.
“There was highway rage and the massive vans driving on the unsuitable aspect of the highway. It was a bit of scary,” Alison mentioned. Nonetheless, as her regular 20-minute commute dwelling become a virtually hour-and-a-half-long journey, she did the identical, navigating her manner on the shoulder of the other aspect of the highway till she was shut sufficient to ditch her automotive in a cul-de-sac and stroll the remainder of the way in which.
Riva Gruen and her husband left their Southampton Airbnb on Friday evening for a 6 p.m. dinner reservation at close by restaurant Cowfish. The map predicted a 10-minute drive, however they ended up arriving at 6:30 p.m. resulting from site visitors. And after the couple had completed their dinner, they had been confronted with even worse congestion: Vehicles had been simply stopped, and there have been no indicators explaining the highway closures, which subsequently left them with nowhere to go.
“It was simply loopy,” Gruen mentioned. “Individuals had been doing U-turns in all places, pondering they may get round and go another manner—and there was actually no approach to get by means of.” After making an attempt “again and again” to get wherever, they finally requested a cop concerning the standing. He directed them to an area dive bar, the place they sat for a while, although they in the end waited within the automotive for an hour in heavy rain after getting uninterested in the bar. They lastly acquired dwelling about two hours after ending consuming.
“I’m somebody who doesn’t like being caught locations. That’s a set off level for me. Like, not transferring, you may’t go wherever—I don’t like that,” she mentioned. Being Democrats, she added, made all of it really feel worse.
Others had been excited concerning the ex-president’s go to. Trump followers lined the streets close to the airport and surrounding space to cheer for the Republican presidential nominee as he got here and went.
Some made plans to get errands carried out within the morning after which hunker down with the intention to keep away from the Trump-fundraiser-induced site visitors. One man who was strolling his canine within the Village of East Hampton after the hoopla had died down mentioned he wished he had identified forward of time that Trump was coming.
“I’d have carried out an indication that mentioned ‘Fuck Trump’ and [stood] on the aspect of the highway and proudly displayed that.”
The City of Southampton Police Division, whose jurisdiction is the realm by means of which Trump traveled, issued an advisory forward of Friday’s go to, warning of “intensive rolling highway closures and heavy gridlock.” Indicators had been posted on roadways as effectively, however for safety causes, Trump’s journey particulars couldn’t be shared forward of time.
