Not true. There's a couple around the corner from me on the UWS, including one that someone wrote a children's book about: https://www.amazon.com/Lonely-Phonebooth-Peter-Ackerman/dp/1...

EDIT: I was curious if they removed it in the last few days so I went out and took a picture: https://imgur.com/a/dQdSEzQ

Has a dial tone and everything. But maybe this is one of the private ones the article mentions?