![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Subway booths started to be abandoned and removed. ![]() Riders no longer had to stop by the booth and make an exchange, they could go right up to a MetroCard machine and help themselves. The advent of MetroCards in 1994 marked the beginning of the end for subway tokens and in turn subway token booths. Subway tokens came in a variety of different designs throughout the decades, and were used all the way up until 2003 when they were officially retired. Subway booths were most needed in this era when riders had to exchange cash for the special coins. To accommodate the new fare price, the New York City Transit Authority created its own currency system, the subway token. There is a ticket chopper in the collection of the New York Transit Museum. At the Wall Street subway station, you can still see the remnants of an original wooden ticket booth, while a ticket chopper that was once there has been removed. At the Times Square/42nd Street subway station, there were once visible outlines of a lost booth and turnstile, but a new floor has covered them up. While the structure no longer exists, you can imagine where it would have fit below the tiled arches. Inside the abandoned City Hall Station, on a mezzanine area above the platform, there was once a grand ornamented oak ticket booth. Remnants of paper ticket booths are hard to come by in today’s stations, but they do exist. Riders would purchase their paper ticket from the booth and then bring the ticket to an attendant who would verify it and then shred it in a ticket chopper. You can see the first one at the Museum of the City of New York. In the early days of the subway, riders bought paper tickets to board. What has changed with the booths is the method of fare collection received and distributed. Since the beginning of the subway system in 1904, there have been subway booths of some kind. ![]()
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