What metaphors are used in Here Is New York by E. B. White?

White makes a note in the story referring to an "old-timer". It is possible that he was simply using a metaphor, but it seems that White may have been alluding to the fact that there are things that have changed so much in the city that he himself misses them. The "old-timer" in the story walks past a railroad and misses the sounds that came from the train. No where does it say that the railroad had employed the man or he had been on trains, but simply that he knew that the familiar sound was missing. It is often true of people that smells, sounds, sights, and objects create happy memories of things from one's past. White seem to be looking around at all the things he remembered from his first days in New York as a young man, and sees them missing, as if a part of his life were perhaps gone as well.