EAST GREENBUSH, N.Y. (AP) — towering christmas tree The lights that will illuminate Rockefeller Center this holiday season will arrive in New York City.
The 75-foot (23-meter) Norway spruce was felled Thursday morning in East Greenbush, a suburb of Albany about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Manhattan.
The 11-ton tree was then loaded onto a 100-foot (31-meter) trailer as a crowd gathered for the ceremony. It is scheduled to arrive at 30 Rockefeller Plaza on Saturday and will be installed in front of the Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown overlooking the plaza’s famous ice skating rink.
The tree will be wrapped in more than 50,000 multicolored, energy-efficient LED lights and crowned with a Swarovski star weighing 900 pounds (408 kilograms).
It will be lit on Dec. 3 during a live television broadcast hosted by country music star Reba McEntire. It will be on display until mid-January, after which it will be milled for use by Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization that provides affordable housing.
The tree was donated by homeowner Judy Russ and her family. She said the tree was planted by her husband’s great-grandparents in the 1920s.
“It’s unbelievable that this is now the Christmas capital of New York City,” Russ said. Radio station 1010 WINS.
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The first Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was installed by workers in 1931 to lift spirits during the Great Depression. The relatively modest balsam fir, 6 meters (20 feet) tall, was fitted with handmade wreaths made by the workers’ families.
This tradition has been around since 1933, when the first annual tree lighting ceremony was held.
