The Gotham Awards (/ˈɡɒθəm/) are American film awards, presented annually to the makers of independent films at a ceremony in New York City, the city first nicknamed "Gotham" by native son Washington Irving, in an issue of Salmagundi, published on November 11, 1807. Part of the Gotham Film & Media Institute (formerly Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP)), "the largest membership organization in the United States dedicated to independent film" (founded in 1979), the awards were inaugurated in 1991 as a means of showcasing and honoring films made primarily in the northeastern region of the United States.