Lifting the Lid on a Burgeoning Trend

I declare coffee lid décor a hot new trend on the Lower East Side. My favorite blog, Curbed, fills us in on Ini Ani, a LES coffee bar with impressions of coffee lids in the wall, which has sparked some kind of architectural interior feud over who came up with the decorating idea first. But just a few weeks ago in a Habitats column, The New York Times’ real estate writer Penelope Green upped the ante by reporting on an actual lid, not just an impression of one, that mistakenly became the décor (or at least a conversation piece): “Halfway up [a concrete] living room wall is entombed the plastic lid of a coffee cup -- a modern fossil and a tiny monument to the human factor.” The architect of this modern gem of a building on E. 1^st St. was none too pleased, but the building’s owner thought it was funny and let it slide. “Herein lies a life lesson,” wrote Ms. Green, “accept the coffee lid.”