The Christmas tree that hordes of tourists will flock to Rockefeller Center to see this holiday season is scheduled to be chopped down in western Massachusetts on Thursday and hauled 140 miles to Midtown Manhattan.
The Norway spruce will arrive at Rockefeller Center on Saturday, just in time for a family-friendly event featuring live music, book readings, caricature drawings and a visit from Santa Claus. The free event runs from 7-10 a.m.
Crowds have gathered in West Stockbridge, Mass. in recent days to say goodbye to the 11-ton tree that’s been growing for 67 years. It will be the first tree from Massachusetts that Rockefeller Center has imported in over six decades.
Well-wishers seeing the tree off celebrated its call up to the big city.
“A hometown tree makes good,” local man Peter Giles Thorne told The Associated Press, while West Stockbridge resident Bernie Fallon said the tree was the “The talk of the town” in his 1,400-person municipality.
Once the tree reaches its new home, it’ll be covered with 50,000 lights topped with a Swarovski star and lit during a live TV broadcast hosted by Kelly Clarkson on Wednesday, Dec. 4.
The holiday spruce will remain outside 30 Rockefeller Plaza until the middle of January.
Roughly 750,000 people visit the site on a daily basis during the holiday season. Tourism officials trace the presence of a Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center back to 1933.
With News Wire Services
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