N.Y. Will Light Way
Rockefeller Center was still a muddy construction site when Christmas was first celebrated around its now-famous tree.
That was in 1931, in the midst of the Depression, when construction workers happy to be employed got their Christmas Eve paychecks around the tree they had set up in the dirt.
Two years later, the formal tree lighting tradition at the midtown Manhattan site began when the tree was decorated with 700 lights and placed in front of the then-8-month-old RCA Building. In 1936, the Rockefeller Plaza outdoor ice skating rink was opened.
This year’s tree lighting, with more than 18,000 multicolored lights, will be at 5:30 p.m. Dec. 5 and will be nationally televised later that evening. The tree is a 75-foot Norway spruce from Raritan Township, N.J.
Other Christmas attractions at Rockefeller Center are the display of trumpeting angels in the adjacent Channel Gardens and the “Tuba Christmas” concert, set for Dec. 11.
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