Post 269 - December 5, 2020

Day 269…

There are holiday decorations up all over the city.

I took a long walk through the park yesterday.  It was cold and threatening rain, but the park was still grimly beautiful.

The day before, Michael and I took a car trip upstate for a socially distant lunch with some friends out on their deck. It had been weeks, maybe even months, since either of us had left the city.

All the trees up there are bare.

Here in New York City, trees don’t necessarily tend to behave in the same way that their country cousins do. There was one massive tree in the park near Bethesda fountain that turned a loud and vibrant red a few weeks ago, but most trees here seem to go towards the yellows and light oranges of the spectrum.

Walking through the park yesterday, there were still many trees that had some leaves left on them. Some were even still green - albeit with a sickly gold lime-ish pall over them. Even many trees whose leaves have turned and died haven’t fully lost their dead leaves yet.

I continued my walk down Madison Avenue to see the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center.

All of the stores that are still open these days along the way were tastefully decorated. Tiny white lights covered the trees outside and discretely outlined some of the windows. Little holiday accents, like a miniature Santa hat on a table-top sculpture of a reclining figure or a little white deer in among the antiques popped out here and there, but rarely anything too garish or showy.

Fifth Avenue, on the other hand was another story.

There is a whole collection of light-covered mostly non-denominational holiday sculptures that line the street from Central Park down to Rockefeller Center.

There’s a big bright yellow New York taxi in front of the Plaza and a red wagon piled high with presents across the street on the corner of 57th Street. There’s a teddy bear with a red Santa hat and a blue dreidel each sitting in front of boarded up properties. There’s a bid red mailbox with a pile of shiny white letters next to it further down and in front of the Microsoft store is a snowman sitting in a cherry-red single-seater airplane.

Bergdorf Goodman has completely filled each of their windows with saturated jewel-toned letters spelling out uplifting words. While the jewelry stores are a bit more sedate, Cartier’s has, nonetheless, made their entire multi-story building look like a wrapped present.

Then there is Rockefeller Center where the tree is up and now fully lit.

It is an 80-year old, 75-foot tall Norway Spruce that was donated by Daddy Al’s General Store in Oneonta, New York.

In 1912, because many people couldn’t afford the expense of having a tree in their own homes, the city put up the first public tree in Madison Square Park.

In the middle of the Great Depression nearly two decades later, workers who were helping to build what is now Rockefeller Center, pooled their resources and put up a tree to raise their spirits. Their families all joined in together to make ornaments and garlands of cranberries and paper. They would line up in front of it to receive their paychecks.

Two years later, in 1933, a publicist grabbed onto the idea and turned it into an annual tradition.

During World War II they had to make some adjustments. You couldn’t use anything that might be able to be used in the war effort, so a giant tree was out. The lumber was too valuable. Instead, in 1942, three smaller trees were put up - one red, one white and one blue. In 1944, blackout regulations kept the tree dark.

Kate Smith first televised the lighting of it on her show in 1951. Because it would be getting national attention, the decorations got more elaborate.

In 1969, a sculptor named Valerie Clarebout created the now iconic row of trumpeting angels that lines the plaza leading up to the rink. They’ve been installed there every year since.

In 2004, a 550-pound Swarovski crystal star was added to the top of the tree. In 2018, an architect named Daniel Liebeskind designed the one that is up there now. This current one weighs 900 pounds and is over nine feet wide.

By 2007, the tree’s lights were switched to LEDs. They are partially powered by solar panels on the roofs of some of the surrounding buildings.

Daddy Al apparently needed to take this year’s tree down anyway. It was, reportedly, in danger of falling. By donating the tree, the city assumed the cost of its removal. A win-win for both.

After the Christian Epiphany on January 7th, the tree will come down and, for the 14th year in a row, it will be donated to Habitat for Humanity.  The wood will be milled so that it can be used to build homes for the homeless.

That the tree is up this year at all is a testament to our need for tradition.

This year, instead of being able to gather together around the tree, strict social distancing measures have been put into place. 50th Street between 5th and 6th Avenue on the north side of the plaza where the tree stands, has been blocked off. Large 6-foot circles have been laid down on the asphalt spaced six feet apart.

To view the tree, you enter the street and stand in line on one of the circles. Monitors keep you moving forward and then allow you to enter the mezzanine that surrounds the skating rink in front of the Lego store.

There are more circles along the north side of the area for observers to stand. You have up to five minutes to be able to take pictures or just take it in before you need to exit on the other side.

Yesterday, because it was cold and wet, there were very few people there. I was only on the line for a couple of minutes before I was allowed to go in. The set-up was a bit weird, but it did my heart good to be there and see it.

That the tree is up this year and can actually be viewed in relative safety is a testament to our resilience and ingenuity.

It is pouring rain out there this morning which may finally knock a lot of the city’s leaves off. It would be the perfect day to see the tree without any crowds.

By the end of the day, today, we are likely to reach 280,000 people dead from the virus. We have well over 14 million cases in this country and added over TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND NEW CASES to that count yesterday alone.

Hospitals all over the country are seeing their beds fill up. Many are reaching or have reached capacity. And still more are coming. There is no break in the climb in sight. Starting in the next few days, the new cases resulting from Thanksgiving get-togethers will start appearing and adding to the totals.

All over the country, healthcare workers are reporting that people who believe that the virus is a hoax are taking that belief with them to their graves. Even as they die from the virus that they don’t believe in, their faith in what the President has assured them, doesn’t budge.

CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield made a dire prediction about the coming winter months, "I actually believe they're going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.”

It might even be too cold and too wet for me to venture out today.

We need to clip the cat’s claws today. He can’t even walk across the carpet without getting stuck. It’s going to be an unspeakably awful job. All three of us are going to need a drink before we get to it.

Afterwards, and later on tonight, Michael and I will decorate our own tree. We will put on either a Charlie Brown Christmas or one of the Rankin-Bass movies - Rudolph or The Year Without a Santa Claus and drink some hot cider.

The holidays are coming regardless of the virus. The holidays are coming regardless of the President.

That we all know that is a testament to our collective faith.

The cat just tried to jump up on the coffee table and couldn’t get off the carpet.

Sigh.

It’s time.