Why Is New York City Called the Big Apple? The True Story Behind the Nickname

New York City is called the Big Apple because the nickname grew out of the city’s horse-racing world in the early 1920s. New York Morning Telegraph racing writer John J. Fitz Gerald popularized the expression after hearing African American stable hands use “the big apple” to describe New York’s major racetracks, the place where horsemen could compete for the biggest purses and reach the top of the sport. Jazz musicians later helped spread the nickname beyond racing, and a New York tourism campaign revived it nationally in the 1970s.

One of the most common questions we get from readers is why New York City is called the Big Apple. Interestingly, that question seems to come mostly from people who don’t live here. Most New Yorkers, myself included, don’t spend much time thinking about it. Unless, of course, you’re a New York Mets fan. When that giant red apple rises in center field at Citi Field, it means one of our Mets just hit a home run.

It’s a little like being asked what it’s like to visit the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty. Plenty of native New Yorkers have never been to the top of the Empire State Building or inside the Statue of Liberty, but we’ll happily tell you where to get a good slice of pizza. In my case, I’ll still mention Sal’s Pizza on Bainbridge Avenue in the Bronx.

As a historian, however, the Big Apple question is a great one because the real story is much more specific than many of the legends that have grown around it.

Why Is New York City Called the Big Apple?

The best-documented origin of New York City’s Big Apple nickname comes from horse racing. During the early 1920s, New York was home to some of the most prestigious racetracks and richest racing purses in the country. For trainers, jockeys, owners, and stable workers, getting to New York meant reaching the biggest stage.

John J. Fitz Gerald, a turf writer for the New York Morning Telegraph, began using “the big apple” in his racing coverage. Researchers Gerald Cohen and Barry Popik have traced Fitz Gerald’s use of the expression back to the early 1920s and demonstrated that his columns were central to popularizing the phrase.

Fitz Gerald later explained that he had heard African American stable hands in New Orleans use the expression when discussing New York racing. To them, New York was the destination every horseman wanted to reach because that was where the biggest money and prestige could be found.

John J. Fitz Gerald and the Horse-Racing Origin

Fitz Gerald’s earliest known printed use of “big apple” in connection with New York racing dates to 1921. The phrase became even clearer in 1924 when he began a column called Around the Big Apple.

In that column, Fitz Gerald made the meaning unmistakable: New York represented the ultimate destination for people in the thoroughbred racing business. The Big Apple was not originally a reference to New York’s physical shape, apple orchards, a particular fruit stand, or the biblical story of Adam and Eve. It was racing language for reaching the biggest and most important circuit.

That horse-racing explanation is now the strongest documented origin of the nickname.

Which New York Racetracks Were Part of the Big Apple?

New York’s racing world was enormous during the first half of the twentieth century. The circuit associated with the Big Apple included major tracks such as Aqueduct, Belmont Park, Empire City Race Track, Jamaica Race Course, and Saratoga.

These were places where successful horses, owners, trainers, and jockeys could compete for major purses and national attention. The expression therefore made perfect sense inside racing culture. Getting to New York meant making it to the big time.

ClassicNewYorkHistory.com has separate histories of Belmont Park Racetrack, Aqueduct Racetrack, and Yonkers Raceway, the modern descendant of the old Empire City racing operation.

Was the Big Apple Name Used Before the 1920s?

There is an earlier appearance of the words “big apple” connected with New York, but it is important not to confuse that with the established nickname.

In Edward Sandford Martin’s 1909 book The Wayfarer in New York, he used a metaphor in which New York was compared with a big apple receiving a disproportionate share of the nation’s resources. That passage is interesting because it predates Fitz Gerald’s racing columns.

However, Martin did not use “The Big Apple” as an established nickname for New York City throughout the book. He continued to refer to the city by other names, including Gotham. Researchers who have studied the nickname closely therefore treat the 1909 passage as an earlier metaphor rather than the origin of the New York nickname that became famous.

Did the Expression Already Mean Something Valuable?

The horse-racing use did not appear in a vacuum. Apples had long been used figuratively in American speech, and expressions involving a “big apple” could suggest something valuable, desirable, or worth winning.

That background helps explain why the expression worked so naturally in racing. New York was the biggest prize on the racing circuit. It was the place where the best horses and horsemen wanted to compete.

But that broader symbolism should not be mistaken for the specific origin of New York City’s nickname. The key historical link is the racing world and Fitz Gerald’s newspaper columns.

How Jazz Musicians Helped Spread the Big Apple Nickname

The nickname eventually escaped the racetrack.

During the 1930s and later, “the Big Apple” became associated with New York’s jazz world. For musicians traveling from city to city, New York represented the biggest market, the most important clubs, and one of the greatest concentrations of musical talent in the country.

This connection helped broaden the phrase from a horse-racing expression into a nickname for New York City itself. Harlem was especially important to that development because it stood at the center of American jazz culture during the era.

The jazz connection is real, but jazz musicians did not create the nickname from scratch. They helped carry forward and expand an expression that had already been popularized through horse racing.

Did the Big Apple Nickname Disappear?

For a time, the expression lost much of its national visibility. By the middle decades of the twentieth century, other New York nicknames and descriptions were more prominent, and “the Big Apple” no longer had the same popular force it had enjoyed in racing and jazz circles.

Then came the 1970s.

New York City was dealing with crime, fiscal problems, declining tourism, and a national image that city leaders desperately wanted to improve. The New York Convention and Visitors Bureau looked for a positive and memorable way to promote the city.

How the 1971 Tourism Campaign Revived the Big Apple

Charles Gillett, president of the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau and a jazz fan, helped revive the Big Apple nickname as part of the city’s tourism promotion beginning in 1971.

The campaign used bright red apples as a cheerful symbol for New York at a time when newspaper and television coverage often focused on the city’s problems. Big Apple imagery appeared on promotional material, pins, clothing, and advertising designed to persuade visitors that New York was still exciting, energetic, and worth seeing.

The campaign did not invent the nickname. That is an important distinction. It resurrected an old one.

That revival worked remarkably well. The Big Apple went from an aging expression with roots in horse racing and jazz to one of the most internationally recognizable nicknames for any city in the world.

What Is Big Apple Corner?

John J. Fitz Gerald eventually received recognition in the city whose nickname he helped popularize. In 1997, the corner of West 54th Street and Broadway, near the building where Fitz Gerald had lived, was officially designated Big Apple Corner.

The marker ties the modern nickname directly back to the racing writer whose columns helped bring the expression into popular use.

What Does the New York Mets Home Run Apple Have to Do With the Nickname?

For Mets fans, the Big Apple became something wonderfully literal.

The original Mets Home Run Apple appeared behind the center-field fence at Shea Stadium in 1980 as part of the team’s “Mets Magic” era. Whenever a Met hit a home run, the giant apple rose out of a top hat.

When the Mets moved to Citi Field in 2009, the team installed a larger new Home Run Apple inside the ballpark. The original Shea Stadium apple was preserved and is now displayed outside Citi Field.

For generations of Mets fans, that giant apple has become one of the most enjoyable visual expressions of New York’s famous nickname. Readers interested in the team can continue with our complete history of the New York Mets.

Common Myths About Why New York Is Called the Big Apple

Like many famous New York stories, the nickname has accumulated a collection of alternate explanations. Some stories connect it to New York State’s apple production. Others claim the city is shaped like an apple, that the name came from a particular apple seller, or that it originated in prostitution. None of those explanations has the documentary support behind the horse-racing history.

The 1909 Edward Sandford Martin passage is genuine, but it is better understood as a metaphor than as evidence that New Yorkers were already commonly calling the city the Big Apple.

The jazz explanation also contains real history, but it represents an important later stage in the nickname’s development rather than its earliest documented New York use.

So Who Really Gave New York the Big Apple Nickname?

There is no surviving name for the stable hands Fitz Gerald credited with using the expression in New Orleans. That matters because the nickname’s story did not begin solely with a newspaper writer sitting at a desk in New York.

The best evidence suggests that Fitz Gerald heard the phrase from African American workers in the horse-racing world and then brought it into his widely read racing columns. He popularized it in print, but the expression itself appears to have come from the language of people working around the racetrack.

That is a better and more interesting story than most of the legends.

Why the Big Apple Name Stuck

The nickname survived because it continued to acquire new meanings.

To horsemen, New York was the biggest racing destination. To jazz musicians, it became a symbol of making it to the biggest musical stage. To tourism promoters in the 1970s, the red apple became a positive image for a city fighting a bad national reputation. To Mets fans, it became a giant piece of fruit rising behind center field after a home run.

And for people around the world today, the Big Apple simply means New York City.

New Yorkers themselves may not walk around calling the city the Big Apple every day. I certainly don’t. But there is something very New York about the way the nickname developed. It came from working people, newspapers, racetracks, musicians, advertising, and popular culture, each generation adding another layer to the story.

More Classic New York History

Readers interested in the places and traditions connected to this story can continue with our histories of Belmont Park, Aqueduct Racetrack, and Roosevelt Raceway, along with our personal look at New York Mets history and our history of New York pizza.

Sources

New York Public Library, Why Is New York City Called the Big Apple?

Barry Popik, Why Is New York City Called the Big Apple?

Cohen, Gerald Leonard, and Barry A. Popik. Origin of New York City’s Nickname “The Big Apple.” Second revised and expanded edition. Peter Lang, 2011.

New York Mets Heritage, Original Shea Stadium Home Run Apple

Big Apple History at a Glance

Why Is New York City Called the Big Apple? The True Story Behind the Nickname article published on ClassicNewYorkHistory.com © 2026