the OMNY tap-based fare system<\/a>, he said.<\/p>\nCustomers who used to give their old MetroCards to Campoverde now tell him, \u201cIf I find one, I\u2019ll give it to you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
MetroCards’ magnetic strips offer one of Juan Carlos Pinto’s favorite materials for his art.<\/p>\n
Elizabeth Shwe \/ Gothamist<\/p>\n
Youssef Eskander, a technician at iFixScreens, also in Park Slope, said the MetroCard is superior to other tools on the market.<\/p>\n
He said he\u2019s tried tools made of carbon fiber, harder plastic and even razor blades, but none work as effectively as the MetroCard, which doesn\u2019t scratch screens because of its flexible plastic.<\/p>\n
Eskander said he has a stash of around 20 MetroCards left and plans to collect more before the MTA stops selling them for good.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, you have to adapt,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Juan Carlos Pinto, a Brooklyn-based artist who makes mosaic portraits of celebrities and animals from cut-up pieces of recycled MetroCards, said the cards have helped him make his living for the last two decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I can pay my expenses,\u201d he said. \u201cI started paying my rent, my mortgage, because of the MTA.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pinto said the inspiration came to him around 25 years ago when he received a fare-evasion fine after jumping a subway turnstile because he didn\u2019t have enough money to pay. He picked up all the MetroCards on the station\u2019s floor, brought them to his house and chopped them up that night in anger, he said.<\/p>\n
After two hours of doing this, Pinto said he calmed down and had a powerful realization.<\/p>\n
\u201cWait a minute, there are five colors in the card,\u201d he recalled. \u201cYou got black, blue, yellow, red and white. I have a palette now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople didn\u2019t see the value of the card,\u201d he added. \u201cIt was all over. New Yorkers are dirty. All I do with mosaics in my studio with the card is reuse and repurpose.\u201d<\/p>\n
Youssef Eskander uses MetroCards to help repair phones. He says the cards are more effective than other tools on the market.<\/p>\n
Elizabeth Shwe \/ Gothamist<\/p>\n
Pinto said his first portrait was of John Lennon, which he plastered copies of across the city to protest MTA fare hikes in the early 2000s. The magnetic black strip is his favorite part of the MetroCard because, he said, each strip contains a stranger\u2019s transportation history. He used around 75 of those strips in his collage portrait of Albert Einstein.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the history of 75 New Yorkers I have never met. Maybe they met each other or maybe there\u2019s a marriage there or a crime, you never know,\u201d Pinto said.<\/p>\n
The artist has a backpack full of Metrocards he thinks will last him another five or six years. But even when the yellow and blue cards become collector\u2019s items one day, Pinto said he\u2019s not worried because this will be an opportunity to try something new, like returning to painting.<\/p>\n
According to Shapiro, New Yorkers have found other creative ways to use the MetroCard, including as a screwdriver to open computers, since the slots in the screwheads are just thick enough for the card to fit.<\/p>\n
Jenny Snowden, a dance teacher and director of Brooklyn Swings, said she made an earring out of her special-edition MetroCard, which had green block lettering instead of the typical blue. Lauren Comito said she uses her MetroCard to scrape off extra ink from her metal plate when she does intaglio printmaking.<\/p>\n
Campoverde said he\u2019ll always prefer the MetroCard over OMNY because of the nostalgia the card offers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up with the MetroCard, so I think for me, I\u2019ll always think that the MetroCard reigns supreme,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Yorkers are losing more than just a way to pay for subway and bus rides with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":["post-376591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}