Glass booths were steadily replaced in the 1970s by the now familiar pedestal-style pay phones, which are cheaper to buy, easier to maintain and less vulnerable to vandalism.

As the proliferation of cellphones has helped make the roughly 8,000 pay phones on city streets all but obsolete, there is an extensive plan underway, called LinkNYC, to convert street pay phones into at least 7,500 sidewalk Wi-Fi kiosks, called Links.

The Links would provide high-speed Internet service across much of the city, said officials from Intersection, a technology company that is undertaking the project, along with two other companies, Qualcomm and Civiq Smartscapes.

Despite this, Intersection officials decided to keep the four walk-in booths on West End Avenue and had the replacement booths installed this week.

Scott Goldsmith, the president of media at Intersection, watched the replacement underway on Wednesday and said he felt an obligation as a historically minded New Yorker to keep the booths as a tribute to their past status.

“I grew up in New York and remember using pay phones, and I thought it was important to keep nice historic aspects like this,” Mr. Goldsmith said. A local phone call costs 25 cents, but Mr. Goldsmith said that within a few days those calls would become free, as an amenity at the booths.