The tree at Rockefeller Center is due an update

A highlight of the month of December for my sisters and me, growing up in New York City in the 1960s and 1970s, was a trip downtown to breathe in the smoky caramel scent of chestnuts roasting on the tiny pushcarts of bundled-up street vendors, hear the jingling bells of Salvation Army Santas along Fifth Ave., see the storybook holiday window displays of department stores like B. Altman’s and Lord & Taylor’s, and admire the spectacular Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.

A hot chocolate at Saks Fifth Avenue’s café overlooking Rockefeller Center followed. Christmas was here!

These New York hallmarks have all since morphed or disappeared, except for the tree. Indeed, Rockefeller Center’s Christmas tree has become the nation’s Christmas tree, its annual lighting ceremony, being held tonight, watched by as many as 7 million people around the U.S. on television, and an estimated 750,000 people coming to see it daily. On Nov. 16 another tree went up, as it has for the last 93 years. 

Is this tradition also ready for a relook?

The first Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, a 20-foot balsam fir decorated with homemade garlands, was erected in 1931 by Italian-American workers building the Art Deco complex. Turning on its lights was established two years later as an annual ceremony, though black-out regulations during WWII brought a brief pause. Also during the war, three trees were put up together and replanted. 

Today’s trees, which are donated, are vastly grander, typically at least 75 feet tall. Identified growing as far away as Canada months if not years in advance by head gardener Eric Pauze, they are assiduously nurtured before being cut down, transported to New York City, their arms draped with more than 50,000 lights and their crowns topped with a Swarovski star nine feet in diameter and covered in 3 million crystals, and viewed by hordes in person, on TV, and via social media.

In January they are then chopped into chunks and sent off to a mill in New Jersey.

Oh, the perils of beauty! The oldest Norway spruce in the world is estimated to be 9,550 years old; in the U.S., Norway spruce may live as long as 400 years. This year’s 74-foot Norway spruce, found in a yard in West Stockbridge, Mass., was about 70.

The White House pardons turkeys at Thanksgiving. Do these glorious trees have to be sacrificed in the prime of their lives at Christmas? 

How about planting a stately evergreen on Rockefeller Plaza instead? Or, if trees are communal beings, plus their relatively shallow roots could benefit from supporting each other, might three evergreens make a home there? 

Imagine this: a majestic tree (or trees) that would grow along with the populace, parents lining up to take photos of their kids beside it as they grew taller together; an attraction that could draw visitors and school trips year-round. A true symbol of rebirth for the winter solstice and of sustainability for our times.

Granted, it’s not possible to transplant an already 75-foot evergreen, and ways to mitigate New York City’s summer heat would need to be explored, though almost 1,000 evergreens do live in Central Park. Compromises might also have to be made to keep the tree-lighting tradition going, such as supplementing with a cut tree for some years. 

This isn’t to criticize the tradition of cut Christmas trees either. If toxic pesticides aren’t used, Christmas tree farms can offer boons to the environment, sucking carbon dioxide out of the air, providing homes for birds, and contributing to a tree life in renewal. Nor has Rockefeller Center been thoughtless: in 2007 solar panels were installed atop 45 Rockefeller Center to support the LED lights now used, the lumber from the tree is passed to Habitat for Humanity, and a new tree is planted on the donor’s property.

But in this day and age of acute environmental concerns, when bold choices for sustainability are warranted, wouldn’t planting a micro-forest by 50th St. and Fifth Ave., to join the honey locusts that have lined the walks around Rockefeller Center since 1952, send a great message about the future?

I know there’s no bringing back the department store windows of my childhood that served to tell stories rather than market products and that the early 20th century blight that largely killed off the American chestnut tree also decimated public taste for chestnuts. But it’s never too late for a Christmas miracle in Manhattan, and couldn’t we use one now more than ever?

Korkeakivi is author of the novels “Shining Sea” and “An Unexpected Guest.”