The Metrocard is no longer. It had just launched when I moved to the city to make theatre after the conservatory master's degree. I actually did a short presentation on the fare structure of the new card in our "business of the business" class in the ground floor studio theatre in the old stone academic building (originally, the YMCA house) in Cleveland. All the same, the icon of the city that I kept on the air conditioner in the work room in my apartment to get through the Cleveland winter was a pair of the traditional tokens, which still worked at the time.
Then, when I moved to the city, I would check my answering service daily from a street payphone.
The present-day conservatory student would likely find a few things about that sentence puzzling.