Nicknames of New York City

A literal model of a big apple is located outside of Citi Field, the New York Mets' ballpark.

New York City has been known by a variety of nicknames, both officially and unofficially.

New York City is frequently shortened to simply "New York", "NY", or "NYC". New York City is also known as "The City" in some parts of the Eastern United States, in particular, New York State and surrounding U.S. states.^[1]

Major nicknames[]

Various nicknames are featured on a wall at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

• The Big Apple: first used as a reference to the city's prominence in horse racing by John J. Fitz Gerald during the 1920s but made popular by a 1970s advertisement campaign^[2][3]
• The Capital of the World (Caput Mundi): popularized by the author E. B. White^[4][5] and by New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani^[6]
• The Center of the Universe: particularly in reference to Times Square^[2][7][8]
• The City So Nice They Named It Twice: a reference to "New York, New York" as both the city and state, spoken by Jon Hendricks in 1959 on a jazz cover of Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers' song "Manhattan" on George Russell's album New York, N.Y.^[9] It was frequently said by New York-based late night talk show host David Letterman.
• The City That Never Sleeps: first used in 1912 article in the Fort Wayne News,^[6] and popularized by John Kander and Fred Ebb's song "New York, New York" from the Martin Scorsese 1977 film of the same name^[10]
• The Empire City: derived from George Washington in the alleged quote "Surely this is the seat of the empire!" though first published in an 1836 newspaper as "the Empire City of the New World";^[6] also in reference to New York City's status as the most populous city in New York State,^[11] whose primary nickname is The Empire State.
• The Five Boroughs: a reference to the counties that consolidated into New York City in 1898, and often used to distinguish the city proper from Manhattan alone or the New York metropolitan area^[12]
• Fun City: taken from a phrase in 1966 uttered by then mayor John Lindsay in response to being asked if he still liked being mayor during a crippling transit strike.^[13]
• Gotham: first used by Washington Irving in his satirical periodical Salmagundi (1807) and made popular as the location of Batman comics, first specified in 1940.^[14]
• The Greatest City in the World: reflective of the city's overall global prominence and cultural diversity.^[15][16]
• Knickerbocker, from Dutch, is an adjective meaning "something from or of New York City", like The Knickerbocker Hotel.
• The Melting Pot: a reference to the wide variety of ethnicities and language groups in the city, and popularized by various authors including playwright Israel Zangwill in his 1908 play The Melting Pot
• Metropolis, popularized as the location of Superman comics, first specified in 1939 and itself an allusion to the setting of the Fritz Lang film Metropolis (1927),^[17] used to describe New York City in the daytime, in contrast to Gotham, sometimes used to describe New York City at night^[11]
• The Modern Gomorrah: referring to the "sinfulness" and organized crime of Manhattan, first popularized by Reverend Thomas De Witt Talmage in 1875 at the Brooklyn Tabernacle^[6]
• New Amsterdam: the original name of the Dutch colony prior to the English capture and renaming of the colony in 1665
• America's City: a term positioning New York City as emblematic of the country, as its premier metropolis^[18][19][20]
• The City of Neon And Chrome: stated in the broadway musical Rent^{[citation needed]}

References[]