That's the classic "Anthora" coffee cup, the paper cylinder gripped by millions of coffee-drinking New Yorkers since the 1960s. The sheer ubiquity of the cup (total figures are hard to come by, but manufacturer Sherri Cup sold half a million of them in 1994 alone) has propelled the design into museums, T-shirts, and countless television show propmasters seeking a visual shorthand for hard-boiled detective, hard-working hack or Gothamite-on-the-go.

The cup was designed by Leslie Buck, Sherri Cup's Director of Marketing in the '60s, a man with no design experience; but he calculated that slathering the cup in Greek motifs and the colors of the Greek flag would help him crack into the ethnically-Greek dominated New York diner market. The gambit worked, and the resultant decades of sales commissions reportedly made Buck a wealthy man.

Buck passed away earlier this week, aged 87. His Anthora will be a tough act to follow, but for anyone willing to take a crack at designing the next generation coffee cup--a recyclable one--take a look at the BetaCup Challenge.