Cultural Fingerprints

Story Behind the Choking Sign: Sketching in the Restaurant World with Sara Rabin

Many custom NYC choking safety signs were drawn by those on staff. Graphic designer, illustrator, and artist Sara Rabin has two on the walls of New York City establishments: one made for Dimes in Chinatown, where she waitressed for a decade, and one from Rodeo in Crown Heights, opened by a friend from that same downtown restaurant orbit. In this episode of the Cultural Fingerprints podcast, Sara walks us through both: the hand-drawn Dimes sign she created not long after spotting a wall of bananas in its Chinatown window and deciding to work there, and the Rodeo sign, for which she dressed her boyfriend and her sister’s boyfriend in thrifted cowboy hats and posed them through every step of the Heimlich maneuver. We explore the summer she spent as a teenager at an all-women’s boardinghouse on the Upper West Side, which first sold her on New York City as the place to be. Additionally, we discuss the lasting influence of her training in fashion illustration at FIT, her lifelong loyalty to messy, sketch-style pen-and-ink work in the lineage of Shel Silverstein, and the tight-knit social scene of the service industry, where creative restaurant staff kept getting tapped to design the bars and restaurants in which they worked or which were opening up around them. Sara Rabin: sararabin.net [https://www.sararabin.net/] For more information: rheakapur.info [https://www.rheakapur.info] and culturalfingerprints.com [https://www.culturalfingerprints.com]

Story Behind the Choking Sign: City Aesthetics and Escaping from New York with Phil Ashworth

How did a dystopian John Carpenter movie end up saving lives in New York cafes? In this new episode of the Cultural Fingerprints podcast, illustrator Phil Ashworth tells the story behind one of city’s most beloved pieces of restaurant safety signage: his Heimlich poster starring Snake Plissken, the reluctant antihero of Escape from New York (1981), begrudgingly saving a choking victim in a bombed-out cityscape (and checking their mouth for hidden razor blades along the way). We trace Phil’s path from drawing at his dad’s drafting table and studying illustration at RISD to pursuing the craft in the city, and we discuss how a basement brainstorm with Trey Kirchoff at Gimme! Coffee helped kick off a citywide wave of personalized choking posters in the cafes and bars of late-2000s New York. Phil Ashworth: philashworth.com [https://www.philashworth.com/] For more information: rheakapur.info [https://www.rheakapur.info] and culturalfingerprints.com [https://www.culturalfingerprints.com]

Spaces Between: Maxwell Neely-Cohen on Archiving Sound and Movement

How does a record collection started at age 12 shape a career spanning literary publishing, dramaturgy, and digital preservation? In the first episode of Spaces Between, a new Cultural Fingerprints series, Maxwell Neely-Cohen shares how growing up immersed in D.C.'s go-go, punk, and electronic music scenes laid the groundwork for a practice that refuses to sit in one medium. We dive into Max's early days as a classically trained percussionist and the makings of The HTML Review, the publication he runs with artist and engineer Shelby Wilson that treats the web itself as a medium. Then, we turn to his work as a consulting dramaturg at the New York Choreographic Institute and his passion for personal, community, and professional archiving, including why oral history might be the truest way to preserve dance. SPACES BETWEEN uncovers the personal histories of those who work across disciplines and mediums. When crossing paths with someone who does not allow their practice to be placed within a box, this asks—what brought them there? What aspects of their background, unique experiences, beliefs, and life story informed that choice? Maxwell Neely-Cohen: maxy.world [https://maxy.world/] For more information: rheakapur.info [https://www.rheakapur.info] and culturalfingerprints.com [https://www.culturalfingerprints.com]

Story Behind the Choking Sign: Basketball, Food, and Design with Pitu Sanchez

How did this famed moment in New York basketball culture become embedded in a restaurant safety sign? In the second episode of Cultural Fingerprints, designer and art director Pitu Sanchez shares how he intersected his love for basketball, food, design, and New York in this legendary passion project: creating a restaurant safety sign that repurposes NBA star Reggie Miller’s iconic trash-talk “choke” gesture, famously directed at renowned filmmaker and New York Knicks superfan Spike Lee as he sat courtside, as a visual demonstration of a choking emergency. We dive into Pitu’s design philosophy as shaped by his upbringing in the diverse borough of Queens, his door-to-door giveaway efforts to make this sign the go-to choking poster for sports bars in New York, and the community of food and basketball lovers the work has brought together. Pitu Sanchez: pitu.nyc [https://www.pitu.nyc/]  For more information: rheakapur.info [https://www.rheakapur.info] and culturalfingerprints.com [https://www.culturalfingerprints.com]

Story Behind the Choking Sign: Fish Cheeks with Lia Kantrowitz and Jessica Saesue

A choking safety sign as art? In this episode, illustrator Lia Kantrowitz and creative director Jessica Saesue discuss their work on the custom choking sign for Fish Cheeks, a contemporary, seafood-focused Thai restaurant in New York. Their creative relationship began at VICE nearly a decade ago and now extends to teaming up on branding projects for not only Fish Cheeks, but also 55 Hospitality’s other culinary ventures! Lia and Jessica share how they interpreted the flexible regulatory language describing choking safety signage to decide on the layout and artistic style of the Fish Cheeks custom sign. They also discuss the connections and boundaries between designer, illustrator, and creative director roles within hospitality, educational institutions, and the real world. This conversation confirms that there is so much more to these signs than meets the eye; they actually hold the stories of the New Yorkers who create them.   Lia Kantrowitz: liakantro.com [https://liakantro.com/]  Jessica Saesue: jessicasaesue.com [http://jessicasaesue.com/]    For more information: rheakapur.info [https://www.rheakapur.info/] and culturalfingerprints.com [https://www.culturalfingerprints.com/]