Why is new york called the Big Apple?

new york City is called many things-"The Great American Melting Pot", "Gotham" and "The City that Never Sleeps"-but its most famous nickname is "The Big Apple". So where did this now ubiquitous nickname come from?

Be a big apple

Over the years, there have been many opinions about how new york is called the "big apple". Some people say that it came from a wealthy family who sold apples on the streets of the city to make a living during the Great Depression. Another view is that the word comes from a famous brothel lady named Eve in the 19th century, and her girls were brazenly called her "big apple". But the nickname actually comes from a slogan used by John J. Fitz Gerald, a sports writer of the Morning Telegraph in the 192s, in his horse racing column "Around the Big Apple". Starting from February 18th, 1924, he began every column with the title "The Big Apple". Every young man's dream, once put one leg on thoroughbred horse, is also the goal of all riders. There is only one big apple. That's new york.

At that time, it was said that jockeys and horse trainers of small horses wanted to make a "big apple", which was the term they won huge prizes in large-scale competitions held in new york and its surrounding areas.

It is reported that Fitzgerald first heard two African-American stables describe the racecourse in new york with the word "Big Apple" at the famous New Orleans exhibition venue, as he explained in the column "Around the Big Apple" at his inauguration ceremony: "Two dim stables lead a pair of thoroughbred horses around the" cooling ring "of the stables adjacent to the New Orleans amusement park and have intermittent conversations. "Where are you going from here?" Asked 1. "From here we are going to the Big Apple," another proudly replied. "Well, you'd better fatten their peelers, otherwise all you get from apples is the core," was a quick retort. Fitzgerald used colloquialism in his column and it quickly became popular.

Becoming popular

Once this word entered the vocabulary of northern society, its popularity slowly spread beyond horse racing. From nightclubs in Harlem to popular songs and dances about the city, everything was named "Big Apple". Most notably, new york jazz musicians in the 193s-who used to use this nickname in their songs to refer to their hometown-helped spread the nickname beyond the Northeast.

throughout the middle of the 2th century, it was the nickname of new york city, and it was not officially adopted by new york city until 197s. New york Convention and Tourism Bureau hopes that using this nickname can highlight the image of this declining city with economic pressure and rampant crime, and revive the tourism economy. In 1997, in order to give Fitzgerald what he deserved (somewhat unfairly), Rudy Giuliani, the then mayor, signed a law to name the corner where Fitzgerald and his family lived on West 54th Street and Broadway from 1934 to 1963 "The Big Apple Corner".