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Early Addition
Because of yesterday's strange and ultimately hilarious for us - since we're not a recognized government or royal figure in Britain - stunt that involved a man dressed as Batman staging a protest at Buckingham Palace, Gothamist thought it a great opportunity to look at the meaning of Gotham City. Wikipedia's definiton:
Gotham City is a fictional city appearing in DC Comics, best known as the home of Batman. At one point, DC placed Gotham City in the state of New Jersey, though its features and location have been altered at times due to the capricious nature of the writers, editors and storyline. Gotham is known to be architecturally modeled after New York City and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but with more exaggerated vices. It has been said that, metaphoricaly, Metropolis (home to Superman) is New York during the day, and Gotham is New York at night. This comparison is helped by the fact that Metropolis is more often seen during the day, and Gotham more at night. Longtime Batman writer and editor Dennis O'Neil has also said figuratively that Metropolis is New York above 14th St., and that Gotham City is New York below 14th St.Gothamist loves the idea that Gotham City and Metropolis are two sides of the same coin or the yin and yang of the city, but we'd like to point out that Spiderman is a New Yorker, as is Daredevil.
The Buckingham Palace Batman's accomplice was dressed as Robin, of course. The upcoming Batman film, Batman Begins, has filmed exteriors in Chicago...meh, better that than a backlot, we suppose (check out a Gotham Post picture from Chicagoist) but still. And Gothamist's interview with Joe Quesada, the editor in chief at Marvel Comics.
Photo from Getty Images
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While I won't sing the praises of Chicago, I'll admit that its skyline is hard to beat (and therefore makes it a fine place to film).
Yet Another Brilliant Protest.
the origins of the name gotham are quite contested, but I like this explanation:
"Washington Irving applied the name to New York in an issue of a humorous magazine name Salmagundi, a title taken from the name of a salad which consists of a variety of ingredients. The original Gotham is popularly supposed to be the village of that name in Nottinghamshire, though I gather there’s little good evidence of this. The story is that bad King John (Magna Carta etc) decided to visit Gotham on a royal progress, though why he should when he had a perfectly good castle to stay at just up the road at Nottingham is not explained. The villagers realised this would be inconvenient and expensive because of the size of the king’s retinue. They decided to pretend to be imbecilic in front of the king’s heralds, by trying to fish the moon out of a pond, running madly in circles, trying to drown an eel, clasping hands around a thorn bush to imprison a cuckoo, and other crazy actions. The ploy worked and the king decided not to come. A collection of tales about stupidity was published in the reign of Henry VIII, entitled The Merrie Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham. So the name had by Washington Irving’s time long been associated with stupidity, even though the original story was actually about a kind of twisted cleverness. Washington Irving thought this just the name to give to a city which he believed was inhabited by fools."
So the name Gotham arose from a protest against a despotic leader. How circular.
here is a more in depth explanation of the English origins of Gotham:
http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/edge/Gotham1.htm
Yo, Spidey and DD may also be from NYC and seem to reflect the day/night aspect of Metropolis/Gotham, but they are from the Marvel Universe. So there.
I suspect that Washington Irving's coinage was the result of several factors, not least being the adjective "gothic" in all its meanings. I'm a big fan of Washington Irving, and I think it's possibly also derivative of Gothenburg (Göteborg) in Sweden.
The reason for this is that Roelof Jansen was from near there, and there's some reason to suspect that Jansen may have been the model for Rip Van Winkle (he disappeared for a long period of time and when he turned up he had an absurd story to justify his absence). A lot of the early Dutch settlers were truly unusual characters, and Jansen and his wife Anneke Jans were among the most colorful. Irving was very well acquainted with their antics of 150-175 years earlier. Gothenburg was a major Dutch shipping destination, so quite a few colonists were likely from there or had been there. And don't forget that Stuyvesant conquered New Sweden in 1655, which had been settled on land between current-day Philadelphia and Wilmington, and incorporated the Swedish colonists into New Netherland.
There's still a group of descendants from Anneke Jans' first and second marriages hoping to rectify the improper transfer of title of her farm in 1705. Why bother, 300 years after the fact? Because the farm is now called "TriBeCa". It's pretty funny stuff.
I heard that the gotham in batman was originally supposed to be chicago, or at least at one point. Much like Metropolis = new york, bludhaven = detroit, and coast city = san fransisco. So sayeth my local comic book guy. Something to do with docks and gangs and bob kane, i wasn't really paying attention.
And these days New York reminds more of Metropolis that Gotham. And I figure these days Matt Murdock would be spending much more time in court as Hell's Kitchen is so quiet and filled with rich people.
sorry but cleveland ohio is the original home of superman as it was his creators. he moved to the new york city metropolis after a dozen issues or so. bright lights big city called you know....
On another note, it is amusing to note the contrast in police techniques between London and New York. While it seems that the London bobbies patiently and politely pleaded with the protester to come down for nearly five hours, two weeks ago the NYPD had a SWAT team on these convention protesters within minutes:
http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/08/26/protesting_with_banners_and_in_the_buff.php