new york

[lara44]

why is new york known as the big apple

[Quizmonster]

Click here for the answer.
(Andy, I clicked on your link and got a "page unavailable" message. So, in case that involved a long-term absence, I offered Lara an alternative. Cheers)

[Golem]

If you click on andy hughes link you'll go to a "page unavailable" site, as Quizmonster says. But if you then look at the address you'll see 4 additional characters added after .html. These characters are </P>. This is the AB websites annoying habit of adding programming text when a person puts a paragraph and/or space after typing in the link address. If you just delete these 4 characters from the address, hit return the link will come up with andy's page.

[jno]

QM, to see Andy's answer, go to the 'unavailable' page and delete the </P> business at the end of the URL  in the address line. You will then see an explanation completely at odds with your own, thus adding to the city's mystique.

[jno]

ah, great minds post alike Golem

[Quizmonster]

Thanks Golem and Jno. It would certainly never occur to me even to look at the address of a web-page for faults! I've now seen Andy's link-site, but I'm afraid it doesn't really convince me. Sure, it has lots of references to "apple", but that's not quite the same thing as "the big apple".
According to The Oxford English Dictionary - the 'bible' in such matters - the earliest recorded use of the whole phrase "the big apple", in reference to New York, appeared in The New York Times in 1928. This is an awfully long time after the delightful-sounding bordello of Andy's site. So, sorry, but I'm not going for it.