For New Yorkers living outside of Manhattan, “the City” has long been shorthand for the island around which the rest of the world revolves. For others, well, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island are all a part of New York City, and in some cases, with more residents than Manhattan, these other boroughs deserve their urban recognition as well. It seems that the MTA is getting on the debate. As Bed-Stuy Banana pointed out, the Nostrand Ave. subway stop along the IND Fulton St. line now tells riders which way to go if they want to head into “The City.” Casual nomenclature knows no bounds. [Bed-Stuy Banana]
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It’s consistent, in spirit, with the USPS practice of using “New York, NY” to refer to the borough of Manhattan. But then again, I never understood why one can address a letter to Astoria, NY, but not to Bay Ridge, NY, so I don’t claim that the USPS way makes complete sense.
IIRC, that’s mostly because Brooklyn always had a more cohesive feel (even considering that a lot of Brooklyn neighborhoods didn’t even become a part of “Brooklyn” until the late 19th Century. Queens, on the other hand, didn’t have any sort of unifying municipal structure until the 1898 consolidation, so it was basically still just a bunch of villages crammed together (which is why the street grid can be so wacky).
I guess it makes sense to still call Manhattan “the city” when you consider that it was the City in an official sense for longer than the five boroughs have existed. Perhaps, in the same way the Hudson is no longer thought of as the North River, “the city” will fade away after another generation passes.
I never use the term “the city” to refer to Manhattan. However, my girlfriend, who grew up in the Bronx and in Dobbs Ferry and now lives in Harlem, sometimes uses “the city” to refer to Manhattan south of Harlem.