The Term and Meaning of the "Big Apple"

The term "Big Apple" was adopted in 1971 as the theme of an official advertising campaign aimed at luring tourists back to New York City. The ad campaign aimed to recast New York, then generally held to be noisy, dirty and dangerous, in a more positive light by stressing the city's excitement and glamour.

As to the origin of the term "Big Apple" itself, the prevailing wisdom for many years was that it was used in the 1930's, by jazz musicians in particular, but that no one knew where it first arose or how it became a synonym for New York City. Fortunately, Professor Gerald Cohen of the University of Missouri did some serious digging and uncovered use of the term "Big Apple" in the 1920's by a newspaper writer named John FitzGerald, who wrote a horse-racing column (called "Around the Big Apple") for the New York Morning Telegraph. FitzGerald's use of the term predated the jazzmen's "Big Apple" by about a decade.

It was still unclear where FitzGerald got "Big Apple," however, until Barry Popik, a remarkably persistent New York City slang historian, took up the search. Popik discovered that in 1924 FitzGerald had written that he first heard the term from stable hands in New Orleans, who referred to New York racetracks as "the Big Apple" -- the goal of every trainer and jockey in the horse racing world.

Armed with the true story of "Big Apple" (and awesome determination), Popik spent the next four years trying to convince the New York City Government to officially recognize FitzGerald as the popularizer of "Big Apple." Just this past February he finally succeeded, and the corner of West 54th Street and Broadway, where John FitzGerald lived for nearly 30 years, is now officially known as "Big Apple Corner."

NYCwebStore.com Team

Contributing information by Word-Detective.