The Big Apple is used by people not living in it, but it means all of the City. Not only Manhattan, but the Bronx Zoo, The Statue of Liberty, Staten Island Ferry, Yankee Stadium, Coney Island, The World’s Fair site, and even Citifield.
When I had friends who lived in NYC outside of Manhattan, the thing I noticed was that, while almost all of them lived in Queens, none of them said they lived in Queens. They lived in Woodside or Astoria or Ozone Park.
Coming from southern California, I assumed all of these were actual cities, like Anaheim or Westminster or Cucamonga. But I think they are neighborhoods. I’m still not sure. But if you said “Big Apple” to me I would think Manhattan, Times Square, Greenwich Village, Central Park–not Queens. At least, that would be my first thought.
Those are for the tourists. New Yorkers know the term exists, we just never use it.
One reason is that mailing addresses use neighborhoods. When I was growing up mail to us was addressed “Bayside, NY 11364.” Not Queens, not New York. Mail addressed to New York, New York went to Manhattan.
I suspect some of these places were independent entities before New York swallowed them up. Flushing was pre-Revolutionary - John Peter Zenger worked there. New Jersey also had lots of names of towns that no longer really existed.
The Martians landed in one in the Orson Welles radio play.
My town in the Bay Area is made up of 5 old towns that merged about 100 years ago. They keep their identity, but are not political entities.
Yes, all those businesses catering to tourists like barber shops, neighborhood grocery stores, meat markets, and the such (like the BBQ and fireplace joint in East Elmhurst, Queens, NY. Definitely “for the tourists.”) … Look, I don’t generally refer to Chicago as “The Windy City,” either, but, when a nickname is needed, it is one of several used. (Samt with “The Big Apple.” People outside of New York don’t generally call it “The Big Apple” unless they’re fishing for a nickname for whatever reason. The same reason I have to call Chicago “The Windy City” is the same reason I’d have to refer to NYC as “The Big Apple.” Being a denizen of it or not has nothing to do with it.) Similarly, some folks claim that “only tourists” call this city Chitown, and that’s just a total load of horseshit, too.
To clarify, by tradition the post office used old municipality names in Queens. Some people use neighborhood names now on addresses which weren’t used by the USPS pre-zip code. Since zip code, the letter will get there if the zip code is correct whether you put ‘Queens’, as some businesses in certain parts of Queens give their addresses, Fresh Meadows, as would now be the custom there, or Flushing, which is what used to be correct in Fresh Meadows back when it made any difference what you put. Postal addresses in all the other Boroughs use the borough (Brooklyn, Bronx and Staten Island) or county (New York ie Manhattan) name.
And I’m not sure people from Queens answer where they are from so differently. I’m originally from Fresh Meadows but very few non-NY’ers have ever heard of that so I’d say Queens, maybe northern Queens, maybe ‘near Flushing’ for people of some but limited familiarity. It would depend on the situation. And people from various Brooklyn neighborhoods likewise might give their neighborhood or not depending on the situation. Another thing is that neighborhood names have proliferated in recent decades. Although, it’s probably true Brooklyn has more of a left over unified identity as a city itself prior to 1898, when Queens was still a rural or at most suburban area. But further back the major Brooklyn neighborhoods were towns in rural Kings Co., and ‘Brooklyn’ meant what’s now Downtown Brooklyn.
This Big Apple thread is a Hot Potato.
I’m not sure that trade names count. There is a chain out here called Big Apple bagels - you don’t want to know about their bagels. Do people use it? No one ever did when I was growing up. Nor were there any Big Apple anythings.
As for city names, only tourists use “Frisco” for San Francisco. You’ll get a stinky eye from natives if you use that name. I don’t think I’ve heard any Bay Area resident use Frisco in the 20 years I’ve been out here.
I went to Francis Lewis High School, so I sure as hell know where Fresh Meadows is. I think I went there more often than I went to Bell Blvd. Do you use Fresh Meadows in your address? Francis Lewis, I know, is officially Flushing, but maybe the border is on the LIE.
Brooklyn has neighborhoods, sure, so does Manhattan. But only in Queens was our neighborhood drilled into us thanks to the post office. Zip codes didn’t change that - I’m old enough to remember the pre-Zip Code years quite well.
We had zones, which became the last two digits of our zip code.
The zones were often based on the old Queens towns, not the modern neighborhood names. Addresses in Fresh Meadows, again as example, have zip codes 11365 or 11366. Prior to that it was Flushing 65 and Flushing 66, not “Fresh Meadows 65”. The use of strictly neighborhood names in addresses dates from the adoption of zip codes…which made the names superfluous.
Also the neighborhood names the USPS attaches to Queens zip codes were those recognized by them in the 1960’s. So for example the Utopia neighborhood next to Fresh Meadows is part of a Fresh Meadows zip code per USPS. Likewise some zips just west of there are ‘Flushing, NY’ per USPS, even south of the LIE, in what’s now known as Pomonok as neighborhood name.
The current neighborhood names in Queens were not drilled in by the post office. The origin of less a single Queens identity v Brooklyn is that Queens was a collection of suburban/rural towns when Brooklyn had become a single city.
But again you can put whatever you want , NY on letters to addresses in Queens and they will arrive if the zip code is correct. 
Thanks. I never had reason to send a letter to Fresh Meadows.
I know about the zip codes. When I was in college we competed as to who could get a letter to ourselves through with the strangest looking address. We never, ever used Cambridge (our fair city) MA.
I figure the term applies to all five boroughs but when I hear the term I think of Manhatten, specifically Times Square.