A bet on a piece of New York City history brought Brian Moore to an MTA facility in Queens for the MetroCard machine he won.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all, I didn\u2019t think I was going to win it. When I bet, I\u2019m like, oh, you know, we\u2019ll see what happens. But I love old technology. I also have, like, a fond memory of using the MetroCard machines,\u201d Moore said. \u201cIt was just a part of living in New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n
The MTA held a two-week online auction for about 60 inoperable machines last month after the final machine was taken out of service on New Year\u2019s Eve 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis machine was put into the system back in 1999. So it\u2019s been in the system for almost 30 years. And to be totally honest with you, it\u2019s been part of our experience riding in the system,\u201d Gene Ribeiro with the MTA said.<\/p>\n
The MTA says at least 31 of the MetroCard machines have been bought and paid for so far. Noah Mallin won a 200-pound MetroCard express machine after bidding about $3,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, we got the little one. If we went for one of the bigger ones, I think my neighbors would be very upset,\u201d Mallin said.<\/p>\n
The bigger ones are much heavier \u2014 even stripped down. The winners had to provide their own transport for the bulky, 1,000+ pound machines. One of them is going all the way to Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think shipping is probably going to be more expensive than the machine. I don\u2019t have the exact numbers yet, but it\u2019s definitely up there,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n
Moore, an artist, paid $2,350 for the machine.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a studio space. It\u2019s going to go there for now, but after that, I don\u2019t know. I think it\u2019d be pretty funny if, like, a MetroCard machine pops up somewhere randomly in Los Angeles,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Moore says he would like to restore the electronics in some way. As for Mallin, his machine will join other subway memorabilia in his apartment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be like a memorabilia display and it\u2019s, you know, something to look at. And I might lend it out for productions and things like that if people want to use it for that,\u201d Mallin said. \u201cTo have a piece of the history of the city is kind of exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
The MTA says it also has millions of unsold MetroCards, which could also be put up for auction.<\/p>\n
As for the thousands of other MetroCard machines, some were donated to schools, the others destroyed in what the MTA says was an environmentally responsible way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A bet on a piece of New York City history brought Brian Moore to an MTA facility in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1038193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,7448,23953,405,403,50,5226,5225,5228,5227,37965,52,11900,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5284],"class_list":["post-1038192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-app-top-stories","tag-app-traffic-transit","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-samantha-liebman","tag-top-stories","tag-transit","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-vod"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1038192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1038193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1038192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1038192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1038192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}