Why is NYC called the Big Apple?

Of all the questions I see on Yahoo Answers, this is the one that makes want to scream bloody hell. It gets asked and answered over and over and over again. I mean, does it even matter? Can you not sleep at night without this knowledge? Besides, doesn't it take just as much effort to type this stupid question into the "search" box instead of the "ask" one? You dummies are the only ones who still actually call it this anyway. No self respecting New Yorker is going to ever spew this silly phrase.

So, you really wanna know? The fact is, there are a few different claims to this, each dumber than the next. Here's what we've got...

From the NYC Tourist Center website (nyctouristcenter.com):

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, New York City's jazz musicians began referring to New York City as the "Big Apple." An old saying in show business was "There are many apples on the tree, but only one Big Apple." New York City being the premier place to perform was referred to as the Big Apple. 

From Dictionary.com...

John Joseph Fitz Gerald, a turf racing writer for the New York Morning Telegraph in the 1920s, used the name in his column. While in New Orleans, he heard stable hands refer to New York as “the big apple that all horsemen aspired to race at.” 

Soon writers began using the term to refer to New York in other contexts. Soon, a popular song and dance in the 1930s used the expression. The corner of West 54th Street and Broadway, where Fitz Gerald lived, was officially designated “Big Apple Corner.”

Want more? Go do a web search, there's no shortage of internet devoted to this!