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Event Information:
Justin
Bieber, Tony Bennett, Michael Buble,
Cee Lo Green and Faith Hill are
among the celebrities set to perform
at the festive affair, to be
broadcast live on NBC 8-9 p.m. Nov.
30. "Today" show mainstays Al Roker
and Savannah Guthrie will host. The
Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree is
an annual Christmas tree lighting
that takes place in New York City's
Rockefeller Center, in mid-town
Manhattan. The tree is erected and
lit in early December or
late-November. In recent years, the
lighting has been broadcast live
nationwide on NBC's Christmas in
Rockefeller Center show. The tree,
usually a Norway spruce 69 to 100 ft
(21 to 30 m) tall, has been put up,
with the exception of 1932, every
year since 1931. In 2010, the tree
was lit on November 30, and is
scheduled to remain illuminated
until the first week of January,
2011. The tallest Christmas tree at
Rockefeller Center was a 100 ft (30
m) foot spruce erected on November
11, 1999 that was being cared for by
Cathy and Jim Thomson.
Although the official Christmas tree
tradition at Rockefeller Center
began in 1933 (the year the 30
Rockefeller Plaza opened), the
unofficial tradition began during
the Depression-era construction of
Rockefeller Center, when workers
decorated a smaller 20 ft (6.1 m)
balsam fir tree with "strings of
cranberries, garlands of paper, and
even a few tin cans" on Christmas
Eve (December 24, 1931), as
recounted by Daniel Okrent in his
history of Rockefeller Center. Some
accounts have the tree decorated
with the tin foil ends of blasting
caps. There was no Rockefeller
Center Christmas tree in 1932.
Many
Rockefeller trees were given to
Rockefeller Center by donors. The
late David Murbach, Mgr. of the
Gardens Division of Rockefeller
Center, scouted in a helicopter for
the desired tree in areas including
Connecticut, Vermont, Ohio, upstate
New York, New Jersey, and even
Ottawa, Canada. Once a suitable tree
is located, a crane supports it
while it is cut, and moves it to a
custom telescoping trailer that can
transport trees up to 125 ft (38 m)
tall, although the width of New York
City streets passing through
Rockefeller Center limits the height
of the trees to 110 ft (34 m).
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