Rockefeller Center has selected a 75-year-old, 76-foot Norway spruce from upstate New York to light up Midtown this holiday season before the wood goes to charity.
Officials say the towering spruce will come from West Edmeston, get cut on Thursday, Nov. 5, and roll into Manhattan on Nov. 7 for the center’s famous holiday display.
Rockefeller Center plans a nationally televised lighting ceremony on Dec. 2, with the tree remaining on view through Jan. 9.
The trip covers some 200 miles from the upstate town to Midtown. After the season ends, the spruce will be milled into lumber for Habitat for Humanity.
Rockefeller Center says the tree will carry 50,000 multicolored LED lights and a Swarovski star on top. That is the familiar look millions of visitors expect each winter in the plaza.
The selection is a 76-foot Norway spruce listed as 75 years old. Tishman Speyer has been tied to courtesy material on the cut and arrival dates.
Crowds have long treated the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree as a fixed stop on the New York holiday calendar. A photo caption in the reporting points to visitors gathering around the display in New York as recently as Dec. 4, 2025, underscoring how quickly the plaza fills once the lights go on.
The schedule is straightforward. Cut day is Nov. 5. Arrival at Rockefeller Center is Nov. 7. The lighting show is Dec. 2. Display runs until Jan. 9.
Then the story turns practical. Instead of a landfill ending, the spruce is slated for lumber that Habitat for Humanity can put into housing work. That is a clean close for a tree that spent decades growing in West Edmeston and a few bright weeks drawing families to Midtown.
No individual property owner or named official was identified in the initial readout, and Rockefeller Center’s public description stays focused on the size, the lights, the star, and the calendar. What is clear is the sequence: upstate farm country, a 200-mile haul, a televised lighting, a long public display, and a second life as building material.
Christmas in Manhattan still runs on real timber, real miles, and a public square that fills when the switch flips. A small-town spruce headed for Rockefeller Center is a reminder that the country’s favorite holiday traditions still start far from the cameras, and finish by putting something solid back into people’s hands.
