Fun Facts About New York

Pinball in New York had a long, dramatic exile, and the reason is way more human than you’d expect. From 1942 to 1976, the city treated the game like a neon menace, not a pastime.

It wasn’t just some faceless law, it was tied directly to Mayor LaGuardia and the belief that pinball was basically a gambling trap in disguise. Then the whole thing got weirdly personal, because the ban did not end with a grand speech, it ended after someone showed up and proved a point to the New York City council with actual skill.

So the next time you hear “Big Apple” or stroll past Times Square, remember, even New York’s fun stuff has had to fight for permission first.

What New York Is Known For (And What's Actually True)

New York is known for the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Central Park, and Wall Street. Several of the stories around these are partially true or widely misunderstood.

The "Big Apple" nickname has nothing to do with the fruit. Sports journalist John J. Fitz Gerald coined it in the 1920s for horse racing columns, quoting jockeys who called New York's lucrative races "the big apple." Jazz musicians adopted it. Times Square was originally Longacre Square and renamed in 1904 when the New York Times moved there.

The Bronx was named after Jonas Bronck, a Swedish immigrant who arrived in 1639 and bought land from the Lenape - his property became "Bronck's Land." And New York City was the first US capital - George Washington was inaugurated at Federal Hall in Manhattan on April 30, 1789.

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This same city that renamed Longacre Square to honor the New York Times also couldn’t decide whether pinball belonged in public life.

Facts About New York and Its Size

Brooklyn alone would rank as the fourth-largest US city if it were separate. Queens would also rank fourth. Central Park covers 843 acres - larger than the entire country of Monaco, with its own police precinct.

New York has 520 miles of waterfront, more than Miami, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco combined. More than 800 languages are spoken across the city - the most linguistically diverse urban environment on Earth.

New York has the largest Jewish population outside Israel, the largest Chinese population outside Asia, and the largest Puerto Rican population of any city in the world. The Roanoke Colony disappeared from the North American coast in the late 16th century - the same era when European ships were charting the coastline that would become New York Harbor.

The mystery of what happened to those 115 people has never been resolved, making it the continent's oldest unsolved disappearance.

Things About New York That Are Genuinely Weird

-Pinball was illegal from 1942 to 1976. Mayor LaGuardia associated it with gambling. It was legalized after a player demonstrated skill to the city council by shooting three balls into specific targets on command.

-Oyster shells once paved the streets. Dutch traders found oysters so abundant in New York Harbor that they paved what is now Pearl Street with the shells.

-The Empire State Building is struck by lightning approximately 23 times per year.

-Brooklyn Bridge was proven safe by elephants. P.T. Barnum marched 21 elephants across it in 1884 after a stampede panic killed 12 people.

-The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel has a private underground train platform - Track 61 - reportedly used by Franklin D. Roosevelt to arrive and depart without public attention.

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Meanwhile, Mayor LaGuardia’s crackdown on pinball was happening in a city with 800-plus languages, where everyone was already arguing about what “belongs” in New York.

And if you think New York nicknames are weird, Puerto Rico’s piña colada origin is its own flavor twist.

Even the “Big Apple” nickname, born from jockeys talking about lucrative races, shows how New York loves a good rebrand, until someone tries to shut it down.

New York Facts: The Numbers

• The subway has 472 stations and 665 miles of track
• Ellis Island processed over 12 million immigrants between 1892 and 1954. Photographs from that period show faces arriving at the island that nearly 40 percent of living Americans are descended from.
• New York was originally New Amsterdam, built by Dutch colonists in the 1600s and renamed for the Duke of York in 1664
• The first US pizzeria opened in New York in 1895 - Lombardi's on Spring Street, still operating today

The "Pizza Principle" holds that a slice and a subway fare have cost roughly the same amount since the 1960s

And after Central Park’s 843 acres and all that waterfront, the council finally had to ask one simple question: is pinball just luck, or is it skill?

What Victorian London looked like at street level in the 19th century is a direct parallel to New York at the same moment - two port cities absorbing immigration at rates with no historical precedent. The 90s that circulates in nostalgia online is substantially a New York nostalgia - Times Square before the cleanup, subway graffiti, bodegas at 3am.

The fun facts about China connects directly: more Chinese people live in New York City than in any city outside Asia. The fun facts about Brazil follows another country whose culture has embedded itself deeply in the city.

The ban didn’t break because New York got nicer, it broke because someone finally played the city’s rules better than the city expected.

Want more “that’s not what you think” facts, like Japan’s apology for a train leaving 25 seconds early? Read Fun Facts About Japan.