Why is New York known as the Big Apple?
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"Big Apple" is a nickname for New York City. It was first popularized in the 1920s by John J. Fitz Gerald, a sports writer for the "New York Morning Telegraph". Its popularity since the 1970s is due in part to a promotional campaign by the New York tourist authorities.
Big Apple
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"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 3rd May, 1921:
Big Apple
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Although the history of "Big Apple " was once thought a mystery, a clearer picture of the term's history has emerged due to the work of amateur etymologist Barry Popik, and Gerald Cohen of Missouri University of Science and Technology. A number of false theories had previously existed, including a claim that the term derived from a woman named Eve who ran a brothel in the city. This was subsequently exposed as a hoax.
Big Apple
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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. "The Big Apple" was a popular song and dance in the 1930s. Walter Winchell and other writers continued to use the term in the 1940s and 1950s, but by the 1960s it had generally come to be known as an old name for New York.
Big Apple
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During the summer of 1937, the students from the University of South Carolina started dancing the Big Apple at the Pavilion in Myrtle Beach. Betty Wood (née Henderson), a dancer who helped revive the Big Apple in the 1990s, first saw the dance there, and six months later she won a dance contest and become nicknamed "Big Apple Betty." The news of the new dance craze spread to New York, and a New York talent agent, Gae Foster, traveled to the Carolinas to audition dancers for a show at the Roxy Theater, the world's second-largest theater at that time. Eight couples were chosen for the show, including Wood, Spivey, and Davis, to perform the Big Apple during a three-week engagement that began on September 3, 1937. They performed six shows a day to sold-out audiences and greatly contributed to the dance's popularity. After the engagement at the Roxy, the group became known as "Billy Spivey's Big Apple Dancers" and toured the country for six months.
Big Apple (dance)
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The earliest known usage of 'big apple' appears in the book "The Wayfarer in New York" (1909), in which author Edward S. Martin writes: 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. William Safire considered this the coinage, but the "Random House Dictionary of American Slang" has described the usage as "metaphorical or perhaps proverbial, rather than a concrete example of the later slang term".
Big Apple
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Uses of the term abound elsewhere in the names of cultural products and events in or concerning New York, including the Big Apple Anime Fest, the Big Apple Theater Festival, Jess Teong's The Kid from the Big Apple and Kajagoogoo's Big Apple, and playful uses of the nickname have been seen, such as Patrick Downey's 2008 historical study of New York City's criminal underworld, entitled "Bad Seeds in the Big Apple."
Big Apple
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The Big Apple Circus is a circus based in New York City. Opened in 1977, later becoming a nonprofit organization, it became a tourist attraction. The circus has been known for its community outreach programs, including Clown Care, as well as its humane treatment of animals. Big Apple Circus filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2016 and exited bankruptcy in February 2017 after its assets were bought by Compass Partners. The Circus was renewed in October 2017 for its 40th anniversary season.
Big Apple Circus
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The Big Apple is a nickname for New York City, New York, United States.
Big Apple (disambiguation)
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The Home Run Apple was originally installed at Shea Stadium in 1980 as a way to improve the atmosphere at New York Mets games, and an apple was chosen as a play on New York City's nickname of the "Big Apple". When it was first constructed, it was made of fiberboard and came out of a top hat with the slogan "Mets Magic" (this was replaced a few years later with the words "Home Run"). However, the Mets won only 67 games during the 1980 season and the Home Run Apple became known as "Harazin's folly". Often the Apple would get stuck, which necessitated an electrician to be sent to repair it. Over time the Apple became misshapen (due to periodic harsh weather conditions) and was hard to maintain, with a Mets executive stating, "It was just totally fabricated out of plaster layered on top of a metal screen with a wood frame inside".
Home Run Apple
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Fitz Gerald reportedly first heard "The Big Apple" used to describe New York's racetracks by two African American stable hands at the famed New Orleans Fair Grounds. Evidence can also be found in the "Chicago Defender", an African-American newspaper that had a national circulation. Writing for the "Defender" on September 16, 1922, “Ragtime” Billy Tucker used the name "big apple" to refer to New York in a non-horse-racing context:
Big Apple