Why is New York City called "THE BIG APPLE"?

   The origin of New York City's most famous nickname has been the subject of conjecture for many years. One view is that one New York gentleman's guidebook to the houses of ill repute in the nineteenth century referred to New York as having the best "apples" (in this usage, a euphemism for prostitutes) in the world. Given that New York claimed to have the most and best brothels, it was inevitably called "the Big Apple." A second view is that the name was derived from a 1909 book by Edward S. Martin entitled The Wayfarer In New York, which made a reference to New York being the Big Apple and receiving more than its share of the "national sap." However, there is no evidence to suggest that either of these two sources had any influence on the popularity or spread of the term.
   Many people believe that the name stems from a term used by jazz musicians to refer to New York, although it is thought that they did not begin the trend. That honor is believed to fall to John Fitzgerald, a horseracing journalist for the New York Morning Telegraph, who in 1921 wrote an article in which he referred to New York races around "the Big Apple." Fitzgerald claimed that he overheard the term being used by some African-American stable hands in New Orleans, who referred to every jockey's dream being to race in New York because "there's only one Big Apple. That's New York." The name was then popularized by jazz musicians in the 1930s because New York---and, in particular, Harlem---was the best place to perform and thought to be the jazz capital of the world.
   In 1971, a New York advertising campaign adopted the name "The Big Apple" (using a logo featuring red apples) in an attempt to increase tourism to the city by portraying it as a bright and lively place rather than an urban netherworld rife with crime. Since then, the city officially been known as the Big Apple throughout the world. In 1997, the corner of Fifty-fourth Street and Broadway, where John Fitzgerald lived for twenty-nine years, was named Big Apple Corner as a tribute to the man.