# The big apple **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [March 25, 2003, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-apple/164015 "2003-03-25T13:49:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-apple/164015/1 "2003-03-25T13:49:58Z")
The article comes from the Society for New York City History, Education Committee [http://salwen.com/snych.html](http://salwen.com/snych.html). We have to take it that they got to the bottom of the barrel on this. * * * When and how did New York City come to be called “The Big Apple”? This is by far the most frequently asked question submitted to our New York History Hotline. In popular folklore, the name is usually traced to early jazz musicians or long-ago sports figures. Often, the explanation of the so-called “origin” of this phrase is accompanied with plausible-sounding historical or biographical details, giving it an unmistakable (but alas, totally spurious) “ring of truth.” Because this question continues to excite curiosity, and because the real facts are quite well known to serious historians, we provide the following authoritative account, based on our unique archival sources. The story may disappoint some readers – truth, after all, is often less colorful than fiction. But facts are facts. In the early years of the nineteenth century, refugees from war-torn Europe began arriving in New York in great numbers. Many were remnants of the crumbling French aristocracy, forced to seek refuge abroad from the dread “Monsieur Guillotine.” Arriving here without funds or friends, many of these were forced to survive, as one contemporary put it, “by their wits or worse.” One of these, arriving in late 1803 or early 1804, was Mlle. Evelyn Claudine de Saint-Évremond. Daughter of a noted courtier, wit, and littérateur, and herself a favorite of Marie Antoinette, Evelyn was by all accounts remarkably attractive: beautiful, vivacious, and well-educated, and she was soon a society favorite. For reasons never disclosed, however, a planned marriage the following year to John Hamilton, son of the late Alexander Hamilton, was called off at the last minute. Soon after, with support from several highly placed admirers, she established a salon – in fact, it appears to have been an elegantly furnished bordello – in a substantial house that still stands at 142 Bond Street, then one of the city’s most exclusive residential districts. Evelyn’s establishment quickly won, and for several decades maintained, a formidable reputation as the most entertaining and discreet of the city’s many “temples of love,” a place not only for lovemaking, but also for elegant dinners, high-stakes gambling, and witty conversation. The girls, many of them fresh arrivals from Paris or London, were noted for their beauty and bearing. More than a few of them, apparently, were actually able to secure wealthy husbands from among the establishment’s clientele. When New Yorkers insisted on anglicizing her name to “Eve,” Evelyn apparently found the biblical reference highly amusing, and for her part would refer to the temptresses in her employ as “my irresistable apples.” The young men-about-town soon got into the habit of referring to their amorous adventures as “having a taste of Eve’s Apples.” This knowing phrase established the speaker as one of the “in” crowd, and at the same time made it clear he had no need to visit one of the coarser establishments that crowded nearby Mercer Street, for instance. The enigmatic reference in Philip Hone’s famous diary to “Ida, sweet as apple cider” (October 4, 1838) has been described as an oblique reference to a visit to what had by then become a notorious but cherished civic institution. The rest, as they say, is etymological history. [Material deleted] Copyright © 1995 The Society for New York City History All rights reserved. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-apple/164015/2 "2003-03-25T14:10:07Z")
I have edited down the quote, **mswas** , since I presume you did not get permission to reprint the entire article. And the columns upon which you are commenting are: [Why is New York called the Big Apple?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_382.html) and the follow-up with later information: [Why are barns red? Why is New York called the Big Apple?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a990917.html) ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-apple/164015/3 "2003-03-26T04:03:13Z")
At great personal risk to my person, I post here. Barry Popik is _relentless_ in his pursuit of the truth. And that site, [http://salwen.com/apple.html](http://salwen.com/apple.html) which is linked to by **mswas** is on his hit list. \*By the way, the link in **mswas** ’s OP doesn’t work. I should have left it that way. What I"m trying to say is that the site has been _repeatedly_ told by Barry Popik that their info is full of crap _and they don’t care_. This is typical of many sites out there. They refuse to do the work to correct misinformation. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-apple/164015/4 "2003-03-26T16:08:44Z")
The salwen site certainly smells funny. “We have all sorts of evidence for this, but we’re not going to share it with you _canaille,_” followed by a suspicious story and a bunch of citations that look a heck of a lot like nonce uses. And I can’t find anything to back it on the web that isn’t clearly dependent on their page. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-apple/164015/5 "2003-03-27T02:48:10Z")
Think about it. This site, [http://salwen.com/apple.html](http://salwen.com/apple.html) calls itself > [@](#): > > The Society for New York City History. **Education Commiittee** What a joke. You’ll get an “education” if you accept their version of NY history. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-apple/164015/6 "2003-03-27T06:12:44Z")
Besides, it still seems a leap to go from calling a particular madame and her staff apples to calling the whole of New York “The Big Apple”. Or are they calling New York a big whore? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-apple/164015/7 "2003-03-28T05:24:56Z")
I’ve always felt that Cecil overlooked a fairly obvious explanation, that it refers to the fact that the State of New York produces a lot of apples. The expression dates back to before there was a Washington State, and before New York City was released from “under the thumb of the hayseeds,” as GW Plunkitt put it. So the largest city in a state full of apples could be “The Big Apple.” Or not. BUt it doesn’t seem any less likely an origin than a gang of prostitutes. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-apple/164015/8 "2003-03-28T19:43:48Z")
But Washington became a state in 1889 (not to mention that Washington becoming a state has nothing to do with when Washington started growing apples), and we do not have clear evidence that New York was called “the Big Apple” that early. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-apple/164015/9 "2003-03-31T06:01:59Z")
I suppose my argument approached the point a bit obliquely, if at all. More succinctly: apples have long been associated with New York, moreso early in the twentieth century, when the state held a more impressive position in agriculture. I am assuming that, in the days before electronic media, popular expressions took longer to get from “the street” to print. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-apple/164015/10 "2003-04-01T06:17:16Z")
> [@](#): > > I am assuming that, in the days before electronic media, popular expressions took longer to get from “the street” to print. You’re assuming that it was a “popular” expression. But there is nothing to indicate that the phrase was used in or around NYC before the early 1920’s usage by a NYC racing writer. He heard it from stablehands in New Orleans. Do you mean that stablehands in New Orleans were using the expression in reference to the apple crop in New York State _before_ there is a cite in a New York newspaper? The NY papers at the time would have certainly been using the phrase at that time _if_ it were a “popular” expression.