"Proud City” was a short-lived nickname coined by Mayor John Lindsay in 1966. “Fun City” was also Lindsay’s.


1 January 1966, New York Herald Tribune, pg. 1:
John V. Lindsay took the oath of office as Mayor at 6:24 last night in the toom at City Hall that once served as the office of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. Standing before a huge portrait of President James Monroe—wife, Mary, at his side, his family gathered around him—the man who became the city’s 103d Mayor at midnight last night:

“Ours is a proud city. It should be a proud city and that is why I look forward with pride to being its Mayor.”

6 April 1966, Brooklyn World-Telegram and Sun, “Of Politics” by Owen Fitzgerald, pg. B2:
“New York is neither a Proud City nor a Fun City,” said (Flatbush Assemblyman Bertram L.—ed.) Podell. “Instead it is an angry city and a disturbed city. Mayor Lindsay promised a government of talent; instead it is a government of dilettante.”