Sixty years after its creation in the undistinguished mid-western town of Terre Haute, Indiana, that most potent of American symbols, the Coca-Cola bottle may soon have to move over.

The New York Bottling Company has announced this week that costs are forcing it to abandon most of its sales of the familiar 
6 1/2 oz., slim-waisted wide-hipped old lady in favour of the red and white aluminium can or the thin-walled Òone-wayÓ bottle: Coca-ColaÕs world headquarters down in Atlanta reports, too, with some regret that, like it or not, the can is slowly taking over.
The problem in New York is traffic, CokeÕs press office says. ÒYou try parking a truck on 42nd Street for half an hour while you pick up empties Ñ youÕll pick up more tickets than bottles.Ó And consumers seem to be less interested in returning the empties now, although they obtain a nickel a bottle deposit.
ÒThe bottling company used to reckon there were 25 trips in each bottle; now they say only five trips a bottle, and as often as not the consumer just tosses them away at the end.Ó
With bottles costing between 8c. and 10c. apiece, the bottling company in New York has come to the conclusion that it makes economic sense to send out most of its millions of gallons of the Real Thing in cans or lightweight bottles designed to be crushed in the garbage compactors with which many city households are being equipped.
Only 6 per cent of Coca-Cola sold in the city now goes into the traditional bottles these days, and a hunt around Manhattan supermarkets will produce few if any specimens of a symbol more famous, and certainly more portable, than the Statue of Liberty.
In Atlanta, where most bottle historians live, there is regret tinged with some hope for the safety of the old lady. One man at Coke noted that a Swede, Mr Alex Samuelson, had sculpted the first bottle for a national competition in 1915.
Since its inception there have been virtually no changes in design, save during a furious row in the mid-1940s when Coca-Cola attempted to remove the stamp naming the bottleÕs origin from the thick glass base.
ÒThere was a huge shout of protest,Ó said the man at Coke. ÒIt seemed that men used to get around the Coke machines at night and bet on the cities their drink would come from Ñ they used to say that the guy who got his Coke from the farthest city would pay for the lot.Ó
Four quarters put into the office machine this morning produced bottles from Utah, Arkansas, and two from Alabama, with muggins losing the bet. But since gambling is illegal here in the District of Columbia, it is perhaps as well if soon the coins yield umstamped cans of Coke instead of crime-tempting bottles.