Hundreds of New Yorkers warmly welcomed the raising of the mammoth 20-metre tall Norway spruce at the Rockefeller Center recently which will be lit for the first time on December 4.
This highly anticipated event in the Big Apple marks the official start of Christmas each year. It attracts thousands of locals and tourists, who wait for hours to see this sight to behold with what is perhaps the most famous tree in the world.
The Norway spruce arrives at the shopping centre in Manhattan this Saturday to a storm of cheers and hundreds of photos after travelling 96.5 kilometres from Carol Schultz’s front yard in the village of Florida, New York.
Schultz recalled that the tree was 1.2 metres tall when she planted it in her yard in 1959. Today, it’s 23.4 metres tall and weighs 14 tons.
The giant spruce will be adorned with 50,000 multi-coloured LED lights and crowned with a Swarovski star and is on display until January 14, 2020.
Construction workers erected the first Christmas tree in 1931 at the site where the Rockefeller Center was built.
The formal lighting ceremony took place for the first time in 1933 and has been a national tradition since then.
