The “French Connection” was in theaters. The Mets and the Yankees finished in fourth place. The city referred to itself as the Big Apple for the first time in advertising campaigns. And that same year, 1971, the Metropolitan Museum of Art introduced a colorful piece of metal as its admission ticket, a tiny doodad that came to occupy a large place in the reliquary of New York City, along with Greek-themed coffee cups, I ♥ NY T-shirts and subway tokens.

Now the Met’s admission button will go the way of the token. Citing the rising cost of the tin-plate pieces and the flexibility of a new paper ticket system using detachable stickers, the Met will end the buttons’ 42-year run on Monday, the same time it switches to a seven-day-a-week schedule instead of being closed on Mondays.

“I regret it slightly myself,” said Thomas P. Campbell, the museum’s director. “One of my assistants has a whole rainbow of the colored buttons on her desk.” But he and Harold Holzer, the museum’s senior vice president for public affairs, who oversees admissions and visitor services, said that the buttons had become an antiquated luxury.