New York City was a pre-war city in the United States.
History
New York was the location of the United Nations headquarters.
In 2065 a nuclear reactor, struggling to power the population of 17 million people, went supercritical for a period of about 5 minutes. While there was no explosion, the NYC incident coined the term "hot summer" for a heat-related electrical overload on nuclear systems.
Appearances
The "Big Apple" is mentioned in Fallout Bible 0 and also in an Capitol Post article about the disbanding of the United Nations in Fallout 3.