A jocular sign placed near the urinals in many men’s restrooms is:
“Our aim is to keep this restroom clean. Your aim will help.”
“Our aim is to keep this place clean: your aim will help” was cited in print in 1970. “Our aim is to keep the toilets clean; your aim will help!” was cited in 1973.
Google Books
How Many Roads?:
The ‘70s
By Herman A. Estrin and Esther McDonald Lloyd-Jones
Beverly Hills, CA: Glencoe Press
1970
Pg. 159:
THINK SEX is likely to be followed by a lengthy exhortation, “Our aim is to keep this place clean: your aim will help,” or this written philosophic acceptance, found on the John wall of a Westport, Conn., suburban station.
Google Books
The Kikuchi Diary: Chronicle from an American Concentration Camp
The Tanforan journals of Charles Kikuchi
By Charles Kikuchi
Edited by John Modell
Urbana, IL: Univiversity of Illinois Press
1973
Pg. 77:
Typical Nisei humor: “Our aim is to keep the toilets clean; your aim will help!”
Google Books
It’s Time to Retire When—
By Herbert I. Kavet and Martin Riskin
Watertown, MA: Ivory Tower Pub. Co.
1983
Pg. ?:
Our Aim Is To Keep This Bathroom Clean, Your Aim Will Help.
Google Books
The Burning Lake
By Jon M. Thurley
London: Bodley Head
1985
Pg. 105:
Under the cistern some wag had written: ‘Our aim is to keep this place clean, your aim helps’, and another legend read, ‘The management should provide the users of these facilities with braille fly-buttons.’
Google Books
Coopers Crossing
By Jennifer Crane
Lulu.com
2009
Pg. 240:
Cheryl was in Muddy’s bathroom reading the “Our Aim Is To Keep This Place Clean - Your Aim Will Help!” sign when she heard Barbi giggling like she always did when she was doing something bad.
Twitter
nigel koay
@Nigeellkooaayy
Our aim is to keep the restroom clean gentleman! Your aim will help! (Pic taken at neighbourhood cafe)
6:30 PM - 21 Feb 2014
Twitter
Judah & the Lion
@judahandthelion
“Our aim is to keep this bathroom clean. Your aim would help.” -men’s restroom
1:02 PM - 6 Jul 2014
Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.
Recent entries:
•“Welcome to growing older. Where all the foods and drinks you’ve loved for years suddenly seem determined to destroy you” (4/17)
•“Date someone who drinks with you instead of complaining that you drink” (4/17)
•“Definition of stupid: Knowing the truth, seeing evidence of the truth, but still believing the lie” (4/17)
•“Definition of stupid: Knowing the truth, seeing the evidence of the truth, but still believing the lie” (4/17)
•Entry in progress—BP16 (4/17)
More new entries...
Above, Big Apple Corner at 54th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. Google Maps. Stolen and missing, 2021-2024.
Above, John J. Fitz Gerald, from the Aug. 15, 1931, Binghamton (NY) Press, pg. 14.
Listen to Robert Emmerich introduce "The Big Apple," a hit song from 1937. Music written by Bob and performed by Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven with Bob on piano. Lyrics written by Buddy Bernier and sung by Edythe Wright. Audio provided by Dorothy Emmerich.
Also listen to a 1937 "The Big Apple" song by Ozzie Nelson and his Orchestra. See a 1929 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald and a 1931 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald.
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