The BIG Apple

In this episode, The BIG Apple . . .

Have you ever wondered how New York City got the name The BIG Apple? What follows is consolidated from Wikipedia & the Interesting Facts e-newsletter.

Before it was referred to as The City That Never Sleeps, the term "Big Apple" was an expression that meant a big deal, an object of great desire, or big dreams.

The first time New York City was referred to as the "big apple" in print may have been in 1909 when American journalist Edward S. Martin wrote in his book The Wayfarer in New York that those in the Midwest (Kansas) are "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." - However, the phrase doesn't seem to have been intended as a nickname, especially since the name was not capitalized.

A horse-racing column published by the New York Morning Telegraph in the 1920s popularized the term: "The Big Apple.”

“The dream of every lad that ever threw a leg over a thoroughbred and the goal of all horsemen. There's only one Big Apple. That's New York," racing journalist John J. Fitz Gerald wrote in a 1924 column eventually named "Around the Big Apple.”

Legend has it Fitz Gerald first heard the term from two stable hands in New Orleans. As etymologist Michael Quinion explains, "the Big Apple was the New York racetracks; the goal of every aspiring jockey and trainer for those New Orleans stable hands, the New York racing scene was a supreme opportunity, like an attractive “big red apple.”

Jazz musicians during the 1920s & 30s also contributed to the use of the phrase as they referred to New York City, specifically to the city and Harlem as the world's jazz capital. Besides song and dance, two nightclubs in the city used "Big Apple" in their names.

Then in the 1970s, the president of the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau, Charles Gillett, began a tourism campaign around the slogan designed to counter New York's rising crime rates and a bad reputation.

Today attendees to Citi field, the New York Mets National League ballpark, are reminded that New York is The BIG Apple. Every time a Mets player hits a home run – a large red apple (Home Run Apple) rises from behind the outfield wall to mark the accomplishment. It has become a symbol of Mets baseball, recognized throughout Major League Baseball as an iconic feature of Mets' stadiums. The apple first appeared in Shea Stadium in 1980; it was 9 feet (2.7 meters) tall and is still on display at Citi Field outside the Jackie Robinson Rotunda.

Citi Field now uses a new apple. The replacement is 18 feet (5.5 meters) tall and 16 feet (4.9 meters) wide. So, for Mets fans, it's still a big deal, an object of great desire, and a heroic display of big dreams.

I'm Patrick Ball; thanks for listening; see you in the next episode.