Due to the corona restrictions, this time the spectacle at the Rockefeller Center took place without a spectator on site and only as a TV broadcast. Music stars like Dolly Parton, Gwen Stefani and Kelly Clarkson appeared on the show on Wednesday evening (local time). Usually tens of thousands of people watch the event on the streets around Rockefeller Center in Manhattan.
The lighting of the lights on the tree in front of Rockefeller Center, which has been celebrated annually since the early 1930s, is one of the most popular New York Christmas traditions. This year’s tree is a 23 meter high spruce from the small town of Oneonta around 270 kilometers north of New York. After the delivery, a small owl was surprisingly found between the branches of the tree, which has since been released into the wild. Then the branches were decorated with tens of thousands of lights, among other things. At the top of the tree sits a 400 kilogram star by star designer Daniel Libeskind. Previously, the German artist Michael Hammers was responsible for the star for many years.
The tradition of the tree was “vital” in this year of the pandemic and the tree was “a symbol of hope and resilience”, the operators of the Rockefeller Center had emphasized in advance. If you want to marvel at it on site by the beginning of January, you have to register in advance for five-minute visit units this year and then comply with mask, hygiene and distance rules. The capacities are therefore significantly lower – in the past few years around 750,000 people looked at the tree every day.
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