"The Big Apple" again

[Joseph McCollum]

On Tue, 19 Oct 1999 14:14:57 -0600 Gerald Cohen <gcohen at UMR.EDU> writes:
>    Cecil Adams (_NY Press_, Arts and Listings, Sept. 15-21, 1999)

>"It [the Mid-West] inclines to think that the big apple gets a
>disproportionate share of the national sap." The quote appears in an
>anti-NYC context,  "The big apple" here means roughly "overweening big
>shot" and only happens to refer to NYC.
...
>  If "the big apple" were a nickname for NYC
>prior to 1920, it should be attested at least occasionally.  And it
>simply isn't.
>
>----Gerald Cohen
>
I thought it was a description of the map of the city...with the stem
being The Bronx, the core being Manhattan, and the fruit being Staten
Island/Brooklyn/Queens.