NYC has also inspired many movies and fantasy cities – from Zootopia to Gotham City. So what exactly does New York City have to do with the Gotham City of the Batman comics? Regardless of the dark side of the city portrayed by Batman, the city is one of the top destinations in the United States that everyone should visit.
How New York City Became Gotham City
Gothman City is, of course, a fictitious city based in NYC. But the name has had an association with NYC. The co-creator of the DC Comics character Batman, Milton “Bill” Finger, originally planned to call the city “Civic City,” “Capital City,” or “Coast City.” But eventually, when settled on the name “Gothman City” after flipping through the phone book and seeing the name “Gotham Jewelers.”
It turns out that the name “Gothman” has been a nickname for NYC since the nineteenth century. The earliest reference dates from 1807 in a periodical called Salmagundi – the periodical liked to lampoon New York culture and politics. The name was used by the writer Washington Irving. Read examples of his short stories like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Nicknames Of NYC: The Big Apple, The City That Never Sleeps, Empire City, The City So Nice They Named It Twice, Gotham City
The name was drawn from an English village in Nottinghamshire called Gotham which, according to folklore, was inhabited by fools. The folklore goes that, at the time, madness was thought to be contagious, so the inhabitants would fain madness to avoid being recruited for public works by the king.
Gotham City is supposed to be a fictional city. It is a dystopian city of violence with its equivalent to the ferries, Manhattan, and Times Square. Traditionally Gotham City is traditionally depicted in New Jersey, but in character, it is much more influenced by New York City.
The latest movie – the 2022 installment, The Batman, was actually filmed in Liverpool in, England. So if one would like to see Gotham City in real life, head on over to Liverpool. The Batman DC movies and series have been filmed in many cities in the United States and the United Kingdom, including Chicago, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, New York City, Newark, London, Glasgow, Liverpool, and even Hong Kong.
Gothman City draws from some of the criminal and gritty histories of New York City. New York City has long had an association with organized crime beginning with the Forty Thieves and the Roach Guards gangs in the 1820s.
New York City Suffered From High Levels Of Crime In The 1970s And 1980s
New York City is a comparatively safe and glitzy city today . In fact, Forbes reported that New York City is the 11th safest city in the USA over 300,000. But in the 1970s, the story in New York City was very different, and it was far from the gentrified, bustling metropolis people know and love today.
So while the moniker, Gotham City, may have first been applied to make fun of NYC’s politics for being fools, it seems the comics and movies nudged it more to immortalize the high periods of crime during the 1970s.
