New York, New York: Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Arrives and Is Raised in Midtown

The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree is up in Midtown. The 76-foot Norway spruce arrived in Manhattan late on Friday night and was raised into place at Rockefeller Plaza on Saturday morning, as hundreds of onlookers gathered for Meet the Tree Day.

Crews drove the tree onto Center Plaza on a 100-foot trailer, pumped fake snow into the air, drove a spike into the trunk with a sledgehammer and lifted the spruce off the trailer into its spot above the ice rink, between 49th and 50th streets and Fifth and Sixth avenues, the New York Post reported.

The tree in numbers

This year's tree is about 75 years old, measures 50 feet across and weighs about 11 tons. It comes from West Edmeston, a small community in upstate New York, and was donated by Rebecca Decker. Rockefeller Center head gardener Erik Pauze picked it, as he has for more than three decades.

The spruce will carry more than 50,000 multicolored LED lights on about five miles of wire. On top sits the Swarovski star, designed by architect Daniel Libeskind in 2018. The star weighs about 900 pounds, has 70 spikes and holds about three million crystals.

A 200-mile trip

Workers cut the tree down on Thursday, Nov. 5 in West Edmeston. A crane lifted it onto a flatbed truck for the trip of about 200 miles to Manhattan. The tree reached the city late on Friday night and spent Saturday morning going up in front of the crowds.

Some visitors planned their trips around it. Emily Avedikian, 35, of Houston, Texas told the Post that watching the tree go up, then seeing the Rockettes at Radio City, is an annual tradition for her and her daughter Ava. "We come for this and the Rockettes. This is my third time coming. It's how we kick off the Christmas season," she said. Tammy Valvano, 58, visiting from Florida with her husband Mike, said she had always wanted to come to the city for Christmas "because New York's magical."

What happens next

The tree lights up on Wednesday, Dec. 2, from 7 to 10 p.m. Eastern, during NBC's Christmas in Rockefeller Center broadcast. It stays on display at Rockefeller Plaza until Jan. 9. After it comes down, the tree is milled into lumber for Habitat for Humanity, the housing nonprofit.

The tradition started in 1931, when construction workers building Rockefeller Center put up a small tree with handmade garlands. The first official lighting ceremony followed in 1933.