Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US tramp) New York City.

1833		C.A. Davis Letters of Major J. Downing (1835) 56: Take care how you write and talk to some of the Banks in York.
1846		Durivage & Burnham Stray Subjects (1848) 107: No boss that ever killed in York / Was happier than I.
1853		N.Y. Clipper 12 Nov. 3/3: ‘I guess me and you kin settle sum mighty tough questions what’s botherin everybody in York’.
1885		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 19 Dec. 7/1: It [a variety of punch] is calculated to drive dull care away in less than a York minute.
1899		J. Flynt Tramping with Tramps 97: That wonderful town known among vagrants as the ‘City’ and also as ‘York.’.
1903		N.Y. Tribune 10 May 17/1: The greater professional beggar has said farewell to New York [...] ‘York is jimmied.’ Freely translated, this signifies that begging is no longer a legitimate metropolirtan occupation.
1908		‘Old Sleuth’ Dock Rats of N.Y. (2006) 96: ‘Your name is King, eh?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You live in York?’ ‘No, I don’t.’.
1921		P. & T. Casey Gay-cat 62: He said he did peter-pork, knew most o’ the swell mobs in Louie and York and Chi.
1961		H. Ellison Rockabilly (1963) 37: This kid was equipped with the biggest appetite Jungle York had ever seen.