{"id":33302,"date":"2025-11-08T21:18:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T21:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/33302\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T21:18:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T21:18:08","slug":"rockefeller-center-christmas-tree-arrives-in-manhattan-kicking-off-new-yorks-holiday-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/33302\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockefeller Center Christmas tree arrives in Manhattan, kicking off New York’s holiday season"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2013 The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree<\/a> was hoisted aloft at its new home in Manhattan on Saturday, marking the start of New York City\u2019s holiday season. <\/p>\n

This year’s tree is a 75-foot-tall (23-meter-tall) Norway spruce from the upstate town of East Greenbush, a suburb of Albany. After being cut down this week, it made the roughly 150-mile (240-kilometer) journey south on a flatbed truck<\/a>, drawing curious onlookers along the way. <\/p>\n

The crowds were much bigger at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where workers used cranes to hoist the 11-ton tree into position overlooking the iconic skating rink. People gathered with coffee cups and phones as crews secured the spruce and began the careful process of stabilizing it. <\/p>\n

The tree will be soon be decorated with more than 50,000 multicolored, energy-efficient LED lights and crowned with a Swarovski star weighing 900 pounds (408 kilograms). <\/p>\n

It will be lit Dec. 3 during a live TV broadcast hosted by country music star Reba McEntire and remain on display until mid-January, after which it will be milled into lumber for use by the affordable housing nonprofit Habitat for Humanity. <\/p>\n

The tree was donated by homeowner Judy Russ and her family. She said it was planted by her husband’s great-grandparents in the 1920s. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor this to now become the center of New York City Christmas is incredible,\u201d Russ told the radio station 1010 WINS<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The first Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was put up by workers in 1931 to raise spirits during the Great Depression. The comparatively modest 20-foot (6-meter) balsam fir was outfitted with garlands handmade by the workers’ families.<\/p>\n

The tradition stuck as the first tree-lighting ceremony was held in 1933.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2013 The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was hoisted aloft at its new home in Manhattan on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[232,75,84,83,9,24,63,19030,19029,421],"class_list":["post-33302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-lifestyle","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-reba-mcentire","tag-russ","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}