After fooling around with Google’s “Books Ngram Viewer”:

Wee were inspired to attend Google University… [Bad joke! eds. note] We were inspired to search for all of the uses of the phrase: “Naked City” in Google Books. Wee thought, foolishly, that Weegee coined the phrase. Apparently that’s not true… (Obviously, if you click on the image it will get bigger.) Here’s Google Books’ “Naked City” from the beginning to the end…

1805 – A short and plain exposition of the Old Testament: with devotional …, Volume 5, p. 171, By Job Orton

1832 – Sketches from Venetian history, Volume 2, By Edward Smedley, p. 55

1854 – Chambers’ repository of instructive and amusing papers…, Volume 1, p.10

1855 – The Friend, Volume 28, p. 203

1880 – Memorial tributes to Daniel L. Harris: with biography and extracts from his… edited by Henry Martyn Burt, p. 308

1895 – The Pacific Reporter, Volume 41, By West Publ. Co., p. 1056

1896 – The Speaker, Volume 13, p. 343

1906 – Tibet, The Mysterious, By Sir Thomas Hungerford Holdich, p.300

1920 – Uncle Moses: a novel, By Sholem Asch, p.134

1921 – The Century illustrated monthly magazine, Volume 103, edited by Josiah Gilbert Holland, Richard Watson Gilder, p.11

1921 – The American City, Volume 24, edited by Arthur Hastings Grant, Harold Sinley Buttenheim, p.474

1925 – A book of discovery: the history of the world’s exploration, from the earliest times to the finding of the South pole…, by Margaret Synge, p.554

1930 – Modern Canadian poetry, p.141

1931 – Twelve secrets of the Caucasus, p.V, p. 38, p.44, etc.

1936 – Louisiana conservation review, Volumes 5-6

1938 – Thrice a Stranger, by Vera Brittain

1945 – Catalog of Copyright Entries. Part 1. [A] Group 1. Books. New Series, By Library of Congress. Copyright Office

1946 – Journal of Photographic Society of America, Volume 12
[Weegee and Atget!!!]

1946 – LIFE, Aug. 12, 1946, Speaking of Pictures… [will credit the photographers ASAP]