http://www.askmen.com/entertainment/special_feature_250/275_5-things-you-didnt-know-new-york-city.html5 Things You Didn't Know: New York City
From its Big Apple nickname to the truth behind Gangs, check out a few unknown facts about the American Mecca.
By Ryan McKee , Lifestyle Correspondent
5 Things You Didn't Know: New York City
The most populous city in the United States is home to some of the nation’s most unusual history. In 1626, Manhattan was purchased for 60 guilders (about $1,000 today). Originally known as New Amsterdam, the English renamed it when they stole it back from the Dutch. George Washington was inaugurated here because Washington, DC had yet to be created. Before the shows on Broadway, New York City was the theater for a series of decisive battles during the American Revolutionary War. Along the way, the city has been littered with pirates, gangs, prostitutes, and punk rockers -- and those are just the facts you learned in history class. Below are the things you’ve never heard about New York City.
1- The "Big Apple" was coined in horse racing
In the early '30s, touring jazz musicians started calling New York City the "Big Apple." A popular song and dance arose by the same name. People thought the slang came from vaudeville. Vaudevillian Billy Tucker called New York the "Big Apple" in the Chicago Defender newspaper as early as 1922. New York City was the premier place to perform, so it fit the old show-business saying: “There are many apples on the tree, but only one Big Apple.” However, more recently it’s been discovered that the horse racing writer John J. Fitz Gerald first used it in a 1921 article for the New York Morning Telegraph. He heard the term around the stables of New Orleans from guys who aspired to race on the big New York City tracks.
2- New York City has the lowest big-city crime rate
In the 19th century, lower Manhattan alone housed over 200 brothels and an estimated 75% of New York men had some form of STD. Allegedly, the word "hooker" came from the streetwalkers in Corlaer's Hook, a notorious Big Apple prostitution spot. Fast-forward through that era, past organized crime, the 1980s crack epidemic, the Latin Kings, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and into Mayor Bloomberg’s reign and now New York has been reporting the lowest crime rate among major American cities since 2005. A major step taken to reduce the crime rate was the effort to clean up Times Square and its longstanding sex industry.
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3- Subway musicians have to audition in New York City
On a Tuesday, 173,00 people will walk through the subway stop at Times Square. That’s almost 10 times the audience at a sold-out Jay-Z show at Madison Square Garden. A busker can make nearly $60 in loose change and consider it one of the world’s top gigs. That’s why, since 1985, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority program holds competitive auditions for musicians, some of whom have even played Carnegie Hall. The best will get two-week permits to perform at prime spots on the subway platforms.
4- Gangs of New York wasn't fiction
Daniel Day-Lewis’ character Bill "The Butcher" Cutting is inspired by a real-life Bill the Butcher. A member of the Bowery Boys gang and bare-knuckle boxer, he maimed a number of his opponents in brawls. He also owned a butcher shop. In the film, Bill fought the Dead Rabbits -- a real 1800s Irish gang. Their silly name is wordplay on Irish-American slang. "Rabbit" is a phonetic corruption of the Irish word ráibéad, meaning "man to be feared." "Dead" is slang for "very." The only gang with a worse name was The Roach Guards, whom the Rabbits originally split from.
5 - Washington Square Park used to be a site for public executions
Starting in the 1700s, the area was used as a graveyard for strangers to the city. For cost reasons, burials were done in a burlap sack and not a coffin. The grass and trees grew strong over the century with the dead bodies providing nutrients for the soil, and it became a common grazing area for horses. By the 1790s, the Yellow Fever epidemic was filling the field with hundreds of bodies. Finally, someone noticed the strong elms surrounding this common death site and began staging public hangings there. The infamous Hangman’s Elm still stands in the northwest corner of the park.
