In 1931, as New York’s Rockefeller Plaza was being built, workers
pooled their money to erect a 20-foot Christmas tree on the construction site.
Their families decorated it with foil, paper garlands and tin cans. November 30
marks the 84th annual tree lighting ceremony there, an event
that draws tens of thousands of spectators in person and many more watching
from home. The evergreens that grace the plaza during the holiday season are
generally between 80 and 100 feet tall. This year the lucky tree is a massive
Norway spruce that was probably planted in an Oneonta, New York backyard around
the same time that the Rockefeller Center was under construction. It will be
cut down tomorrow and arrive in the Big Apple two days later. An army of
decorators will dress it with thousands of tiny LED lights. By the time the
tree comes down in January, it will have greeted more than 125 million
visitors.
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