Big Apple: Difference between revisions

{{for multi|the city itself|New York City|other uses|Big Apple (disambiguation)}}

"'''The Big Apple'''" is a [[Nicknames of New York City|nickname]] for [[New York City]]. It was first popularized in the 1920s by [[John J. Fitz Gerald]], a sportswriter for the ''[[The Morning Telegraph|New York Morning Telegraph]]''. Its popularity since the 1970s is due in part to a promotional campaign by the New York tourist authorities.

== Origin ==

The earliest known usage of "big apple" appears in the book ''The Wayfarer in New York'' (1909), in which [[Edward Sandford Martin]] writes: <blockquote>Kansas is apt to see in New York a greedy city ... It inclines to think that the big apple gets a disproportionate share of the national sap.<ref>{{Cite news | first = William | last = Safire | author-link = William Safire | title = Big Applesource | newspaper = [[The New York Times Magazine]] | date = September 17, 2000 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/17/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-9-17-00-on-language-slurvian.html?pagewanted=2}}</ref><ref>{{Citation | first = William | last = Safire | author-link = William Safire | title = The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time | year = 2004 | page = [https://books.google.com/books?id=blcCxBWVdzgC&pg=PA23&dq=big%20apple 23]| publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn=9780743242448}}</ref></blockquote> [[William Safire]] considered this the coinage, but because the phrase is not quoted in the text, it is likely that it was used as a metaphor, and not as a nickname for the city.<ref name=gothamist>Hamilton, Alex (January 21, 2020) [https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/big-apple-nickname-origin-nyc-history "Where Did The Nickname 'The Big Apple' Come From?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200122030521/https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/big-apple-nickname-origin-nyc-history |date=January 22, 2020 }} ''[[Gothamist]]''</ref>

=== Horse racing origin ===

"The Big Apple" was popularized as a name for New York City by [[John J. Fitz Gerald]] in a number of horse-racing articles for the ''New York Morning Telegraph'' in the 1920s. The earliest of these was a casual reference on 3 May 1921:

== Popularity ==

By the late 1920s, New York writers other than Fitz Gerald were starting to use "Big Apple", and were using it in contexts other than horse racing.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/1920s_non_horseracing_big_apple_citations/| title = "1920s Non-Horseracing 'Big Apple' Citations"}}</ref> "The Big Apple" was a popular song<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/big_apple_song_by_bob_emmerich/| title = "'Big Apple""song by Bob Emmerich"}}</ref> and [[Big Apple (dance)|dance]]<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/big_apple_in_the_1930s_two_clubs_plus_song_and_dance/| title = "'Big Apple' in the 1930s (Two clubs, plus song and dance)"}}</ref><ref>The dance was mentioned by name by [[Mickey Rooney]] in the 1938 movie ''[[Love Finds Andy Hardy]]''.</ref> in the 1930s.  Jazz musicians in the 1930s also contributed to the use of the phrase to refer to New York City,<ref>Zimmer, Ben (January 2, 2020) [https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-big-apple-new-yorks-nickname-via-new-orleans-and-the-red-delicious-11577991162 "'The Big Apple': New York’s Nickname, via New Orleans and the 'Red Delicious'"] ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]''</ref> specifically to the city and [[Harlem]] as the jazz capital of the world.<ref name=enc-nyc>Cohen, Gerald Leonard "Big Apple" in {{cite enc-nyc2|page=125}}</ref> Beside the song and the dance, two nightclubs in the city used "Big Apple" in their names.<ref name=gothamist />

In the early 1970s, however, during [[New York City fiscal crisis|the city's fiscal crisis]], "People were looking around desperately and some of them seized that old phrase the Big Apple to remind people of when New York had been a strong and powerful city and might become that again," according to the official Manhattan Borough Historian, Dr. Robert Snyder.  It was then that the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau &ndash; now [[NYC & Company|"NYC Tourism + Conventions"]], New York City's official marketing and tourism organization &ndash; with the help of the [[Ogilvy & Mather]] advertising firm,<ref name=gothamist /> began to promote the city's "Big Apple" nickname to tourists,<ref>[http://www.nycvisit.com/content/index.cfm?pagePkey=20 About NYC and Company] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012224809/http://www.nycvisit.com/content/index.cfm?pagePkey=20 |date=October 12, 2007 }}.</ref> under the leadership of its president, Charles Gillett.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/big_apple_1970s_revival_charlie_gillett_and_lew_rudin/| title = "Big Apple 1970s Revival: Charlie Gillett and Lew Rudin"}}</ref><ref name=enc-nyc /> The campaign was a success,<ref name=gothamist /> and the nickname has remained popular since then.<ref name=voa>{{cite news|author=Staff|url=http://www1.voanews.com/a-23-2009-12-24-voa2-84659432.html|title=Words and Their Stories: Nicknames for New York City|date=February 23, 2010|work=[[Voice of America]]|access-date=March 2, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100413182642/http://www1.voanews.com/a-23-2009-12-24-voa2-84659432.html|archive-date=April 13, 2010|url-status=dead|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

{{portal|New York City}}

== References ==

== External links ==

{{wiktionary|Big Apple}}