The Jitney: White whine included (HamptonsJitney.com)

Spring skirt trends have given way at The New York Times to the more topical issues facing Manhattanites: like how to escape from New York City and get up to the Hamptons.

Three stories in two days debated the relative pros and cons of train, bus, and air travel upstate, but we're still left with a nagging question...do we have to go? (That's rhetorical, obviously, yes, you have to go to the Hamptons. Every weekend. All summer.) The only thing missing is an in-depth profile on seaplanes.

So for a quick refresher course--just in case you don't have time to read a 1,000 word piece on how much alcohol 21-year-olds consume on the LIRR, we've summed up The Grey Lady's stance on each method of getting your tuchus to Montauk.

 1. The Jitney

Dissected in: "To The Hamptons, and Step On It!" (July 13)

White Whine:

"They should hand out Xanax,” said Julia Kirchhausen, a communications consultant, after taking the Ambassador on a Friday afternoon....One woman asked for two snacks. The attendant said no. The woman asked for two newspapers: The New York Times and Dan’s Papers. The attendant said she could have one or the other, not both.

The Upshot: "Most of the time...the ride is almost library-quiet."

The Takeaway: If you can't bear the traffic, get drunk on The Ambassador, which serves...what else? White wine.

2. The Long Island Railroad

Dissected in: "The Hamptons Party Starts on the Train Tracks" (July 14th)

White Wine:

Some riders carve islands of civility amid the packs of partyers. On the Friday train that carried the Johnsons, Hunter Brooks and Nevin Shetty, both 28, sat with a wooden chessboard balanced between them on their knees. “Do you have to party on a train?” Mr. Brooks said. “It’s nice to have a conversation.”

The Upshot: "I don’t want to get out there completely sober and everybody is already crunked up at the pool."

The Takeaway: If you're looking to get wasted, definitely check out the 5:09 on Track 18. Just don't go after midnight, when it's illegal.

3. Helicopters

Dissected in: "Sparing No Expense for a Copter Ride to the Hamptons" (July 14th)

White Wine:

It is also expensive: the charter fee for this flight — there is no scheduled helicopter service to East Hampton — was $3,400. The Eurocopter seats six, so if full, it costs about $567 per person.

Upshot:

This was a moment for gloating: below, the cars on the Long Island Expressway were inching toward Exit 53, where Fire Island-bound crowds headed onto the Sagtikos State Parkway.

Takeaway: If you are a rich, deaf person (the noise is so bad that a new federal regulations will require copters to fly a mile off-shore) who is not afraid of heights, than pack your Dramamine and try not to fall out!

According to the Daily News, the city convinced those tourist-thronged helicopter tours not to hover over the park and the city's oldest bridge anymore. Some scofflaw pilots are skirting the ban, though, and it's got the park's designer and Brooklyn Heights residents (never an entitled bunch) up in arms once again.

"We have started to build a park that everybody seems to like quite a lot at considerable public investment, and the noise is horrendous and disturbing," Michael Van Valkenburgh told the Daily News. He said the overflights are ruining the park's "zen-like connection to the openness of the water" -- admittedly hard to maintain in a noisy city. "It's like the straw that breaks the camel's back," he said.

[...]

"The greatly heralded agreement has been disregarded by many pilots," said Christa Rice, 70, of Brooklyn Heights. "It's like a giant screw turning over and over. It comes right into your bedroom, your living room. Everywhere you are you hear it."

And they thought the condo developers were the bad guys.

With a record number of tourists in New York, these sorts of conflagrations are bound to continue. They're already clogging the sidewalks and the bridges. Pretty soon tourists will be stacked on each other, forming into the shape of high-rise condos, and the entire Brooklyn gentry will lead an uprising against their sky-dwelling overlords

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo