Big Apple, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

Big Apple n.

[in the New Yorker of 6 August 1984 Charles Gillett, the president of the New York Convention & Visitors Bureau, Inc., spoke on the value of the image of New York as the ‘Big Apple’. It was his organization that plucked the term from the jazz lingo of the 1920s. The phrase in the jazz world, he said, had been playing ‘the Big Stem in the Big Apple, the Big Stem being Broadway.’ For an exhaustive study of ‘big apple’ see Cohen (ed.) Studies in Slang III (1993) and IV (1995); Late in 1937 a dance called the Big Apple conquered the country]

New York City, spec. Broadway.

1927		W. Winchell in Tosches (2001) 322: Broadway is the Big Apple, the Main Stem, the goal of all ambition, the pot of gold at the end of a drab and somewhat colorless rainbow.
1928		Phila. Eve. Bulletin 5 Oct. 40/1: I’m sending yuh a couple of trailers, with tin shirts – gorillas from th’ Big Apple.
1942		Z.N. Hurston ‘Story in Harlem Sl.’ in Novels and Stories (1995) 1010: The big apple: New York City.
1946		Pic (N.Y.) Oct. 64: [headline] You Don’t Need the Tiffany Touch To Run Your Pony on the Big Apple Today – If You Own a Horse.
1958		C. Himes Real Cool Killers (1969) 14: This is New York City, the Big Apple.
1961		H. Ellison Rockabilly (1963) 74: Why are we goin’ outta the Big Apple?
1972		Hall & Adelman Gentleman of Leisure 49: He decided to make it in the Big Apple.
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 92: I was in the Big Apple at the time doing a major Australian promotion.
1999		Observer 13 June 21: The cultured social life of the Big Apple.
2000		G. Pelecanos Shame the Devil 78: Say hello to the Big Apple for all us provincial types down here.
2003		T. Dorsey Stingray Shuffle 255: Yes sir! Flying to the Big Apple! [...] New York, New York.