If someone asked you what are the biggest differences between the community you live and New York City, chances are the list would be rather long. And, if you are a coffee drinker, one of the items on that list would be the city's coffee cups.
For those of us who travel to the city , or for people who pay attention to details like coffee cups on television shows and movies, you know that the coffee cups in New York, don't look like the coffee cups in Minnesota, Oklahoma or Washington state.
The New York Times has a wonderful obituary today on Leslie Buck, the man who designed the coffee cup that will forever be associated with New York coffee.
Leslie Buck joined Sherri Cup, then a startup, in the mid-’60s. Originally the company’s sales manager (for a time, he was its entire sales force), he later became its director of marketing. Sherri was keen to crack New York’s hot-cup market. Since many of the city’s diners were owned by Greeks, Mr. Buck hit on the idea of a Classical cup in the colors of the Greek flag. Though he had no formal training in art, he executed the design himself. It was an instant success. Mr. Buck made no royalties from the cup, but he did so well in sales commissions that it hardly mattered, his son said. On his retirement from Sherri in 1992, the company presented Mr. Buck with 10,000 specially made Anthoras, printed with a testimonial inscription.
In its heyday, more than 500 million of the cups were produced each year. In recent years, that number has dropped to 200 million. That's still a lot of coffee. You can read more about Mr. Buck and how he came up with his design, at the NYT. Mr. Buck was 87 years old. I
mage Credit: New York Times
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