Rockefeller Center has found its star for the holidays, and this year it is a towering 76-foot Norway spruce pulled from a property in West Edmeston, New York. Crews are expected to cut the tree down on November 5 and truck it into Manhattan two days later, kicking off the countdown to one of the city's most-watched holiday traditions.
According to NBC New York, the spruce was selected from upstate New York for this year's display, with the station reporting the property is in Otsego County. The tree's home county is Otsego County. Big Frog 104 reports that the spruce measures 76 feet tall, spans roughly 50 feet wide and carries an estimated weight of 11 tons.
Once it arrives, the tree will undergo its now-familiar transformation into a Midtown spectacle. Per Rockefeller Center, the spruce will be strung with more than 50,000 multicolored LED lights and crowned with the venue's signature Swarovski star before the official lighting ceremony on December 2, running from 7 to 10 p.m. The tree is then expected to remain on public view until January 9, 2027, giving visitors roughly six weeks to see it in person.
A Tradition Rooted in Small-Town New York
This year's pick continues a recent pattern of Rockefeller Center reaching into New York's rural communities for its headline attraction. Last year's tree, a 75-foot Norway spruce from the Russ family property in East Greenbush, traveled more than 150 miles to reach the plaza, according to WAMC. That station noted it was only the second time in the tradition's history that a tree from New York's Capital Region had been chosen, following an 82-foot spruce from Queensbury in 2022.
The year before that, organizers looked outside New York altogether. The 2024 tree was a 74-foot Norway spruce grown on longtime resident Earl Albert's property in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, as reported by the Berkshire Eagle. That tree was about 70 years old, 43 feet wide, and also weighed in at 11 tons, marking the first time since 1959 that Massachusetts had supplied the honoree. It was cut down on November 7 of that year, and the lighting ceremony that December 4 was broadcast live on NBC and streamed on Peacock.
What Happens to the Tree After the Holidays
Once the 2026 season wraps, the spruce will not simply be hauled away and discarded. Rockefeller Center says the tree will be donated to Habitat for Humanity, where it will be milled, treated, and turned into lumber used for home building. It is a practice the organization has repeated in recent years, including with the 2025 East Greenbush tree, which WAMC reported was similarly destined to be milled into lumber for the same nonprofit.
For now, the countdown is just beginning. With the cutting crew set to arrive in West Edmeston within days and the tree due in Manhattan by November 7, New Yorkers have about five weeks to wait before the plaza's lights flip on and another holiday season officially gets underway.
