Misconception: "New Yorkers don't really refer to the city as the Big Apple."
...we do, actually.
Comment from reader Scott Butler on http://ny.com/histfacts/apple.html:
"Accoring to David Ellis's Lonely Planet 'New York City' guide (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0864425023/mediabridgeinfos) (1st edition, Sept. 1997, p. 11), NYC was named so not because of jazz musicians, but because a writer covering horse races in 1920 (named John FitzGerald) repeated in the 'Morning Telegraph' what stable hands in New Orleans referred to a trip to a NY racecourse as the 'Big Apple', or greatest reward for any thoroughbred. The city government has agreed to this story, and all public tourist literature has been amended to reflect this."
See also note on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Apple