I never been to New York but there are alot of stories about the city, movies and documentaries and FPS all show New York subway to a certain extent. The city's agining Subway cars move through the tunnels with the lights flickering, and rail joints click n' clank away. The subway in New York is typically bare metal and it accumulates lots of wear and tear alot like the Long Island Subway system (a bit creepy and unsettleing but facinating nevertheless). The developers could pick any years to represent NY Subway what is easiest for development as long as it covers majority if not all of lines. I would love to listen to some of it's history including the old un-used stations that are picking up dust and home to various rodents maybe even go wondering around there, we have a flashlight afterall.
It's an interesting idea that has been kicked around before, the general consensus being you'd never get MTA/NYC/whatever license is relevant to sign off on a dilapidated subway with graffiti, etc. I agree, it would be awesome though, especially if they reskinned some of the passengers with Warriors vests. If you're interested in vintage NYC subway culture, check out a documentary from 1982 called "Style Wars." You can find version of it on YouTube, etc.
I believe the issue is more security than presentation. The MTA probably isn't too keen on accurately modeled subway networks. Even though the towers fell almost 25 years ago, we unfortunately still live in a very paranoid post 9/11 society. While I think a NYCTA route would be cool, especially in an older time period with Redbirds or Lo-V cars, it's probably never going to happen. If you play MSTS/Open Rails, Train-Sim has a pretty good vintage NYCTA route in their freeware library. If you ever get the chance to go, I highly suggest visiting the Transit Museum in Brooklyn. It's easy to get to from Manhattan on the subway and has an awesome collection of cars. They also run museum trains for certain baseball games, events, and holidays.
I'd defenetly be open to vintage years NYC subway like 1980's, when VHS era was alive and well. That's still pretty cool imo. Yeah, i forgot about that paranoia still in the backround. NY city is a unique city overall, it's featured in many video game titles in some way or another.
