It's all hush-hush, but the tree in Rockefeller Center for Xmas

[amerikat]

is from my home town. Hamilton NJ. I don't live there anymore. But I am so proud that a tree that I admired all these years will grace the nation with it's beauty. I am sad that it will be cut down but I understand the need for a national tree. I guess it is local pride......we all have some of that.

Cracks me up that is under police guard. I'll post a link when it becomes available.

I always admired that tree. It was next to a place called "tree King", they sold season stuff.

They had one great tree on their property, and so it goes,

Please don't rag me about a tree cut down, don't rag me about it. Sometimes a tree is more than a tree. I know this tree, and she is proud. I really can't speak on behalf of this tree. She didn't ask to be chosen, I know this.

Trees are cut every day.......I'm glad this one is an icon for this year. I would like to think of this tree as Obama's tree. That is all.

[ogneopasno]

1. That's awesome, and I understand exactly what you are talking about. Well said.

[amerikat]

6. Thank you...not easy losing a great tree.

but for a great cause. I still have mixed emotions,

[ContinentalOp]

19. It's not a great cause. It's senseless.

The people of Hamilton could have enjoyed that tree for decades. Instead some idiots in Manhattan will speed by it for a month. This could so easily be an artificial tree and none would be the wiser. But I imagine that there's some B.S. sense of pride in it being a real tree that New Yorkers are not likely to give up.

[Liberal_in_LA]

2. Saw a news bit on how they pick the tree...drive around small towns, find one and bribe the owner

. It's ok. someone will plant a new one.

[amerikat]

3. yes....they will plant new one

they have many ready for the honor.

[amerikat]

9. Apparently that is how it works.

but I bet for each tree harvested in this way inspires others to plant more for future profit or fame

[ContinentalOp]

12. It's not OK. That's pretty sick. They should use an artificial tree. -nt-

[roguevalley]

27. I hate this too though I will not begrudge the OP. I prefer the greater trees

like this, the obvious best reproducers to be left alone to do just that.

[SoCalDem]

21. Our next door neighbor made a shit load of moolah on his 4 palms

Guys came and offered him a BUNCH of money.. He moved to a much nicer house soon after, and has rented out his old house since.. They were about 50 ft tall and GORGEOUS..

a "Palm tree wrangler" from LA bought them.. Good specimens sell for $400 a foot..he sold FOUR...

We have "volunteers" that sprang up in our yard, but they are pretty scruffy looking..

[petgoat]

23. A guy bought a broke-down farm for $30k, sold the timber for $25 k, and defaulted on the loan.

Easy money. Pretty shitty for the neighbors.

[ContinentalOp]

24. Yeah, that sounds about right. Screw the whole neighborhood I got mine.

Let everyone else live in a concrete desert.

[The Wielding Truth]

4. It is sad though. I see what you mean. It could have fallen in a

storm. So at list it will be remembered and cherished and enjoyed by many before it falls.

[amerikat]

7. always admired......not the biggest not the best,

I always noticed that tree.........always caught my eye.

edit for spelling

[The Wielding Truth]

10. It caught some else's eye, too. That's its fate.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. I don't understand why they didn't plant a tree there years ago and

use the same one year after year...

[amerikat]

8. Too hard to dig a rootball(required to keep a tree alive)

some trees are sacrificed..........pinecones are the offspring.

[ContinentalOp]

11. Ugh, you're more levelheaded about this than I.

I can't stand anyone trimming trees, let alone cutting them down. For a fucking Christmas tree? To be used in another state!? I would be livid!

Seriously why do they even use a real tree in Rockefeller Center? That should be artificial. Nobody would even notice! What, are they going to complain about the lack of "christmas tree smell"? Sickening.

[wileedog]

14. Uh, its a tree

I'm guessing you are sitting in a wooden house right now at a wooden desk. And don't try and sell me some native American "use what you need" crap, you know our society doesn't work that way.

Seriously, there are no shortage of trees in NJ at the moment. Using one as a national symbol that millions admire and take joy from is better than the thousands of trees that get wasted every day printing out joke e-mails.

[ContinentalOp]

16. I'm not opposed to the use of wood, but if we're going to have trees where we live...

for decorative purposes, then leave them alone. I hate it when people top trees. I hate it when they trim them and whack them apart so drastically that they become nothing but skeletons. And yes, the idea of cutting down a big old beautiful grand tree in a public place in New Jersey so that it can look impressive for a month in Manhattan and then be gone forever... well, that's just plain idiotic.

And then to cover it entirely with lights and ornaments... NOBODY will see the tree or know whether or not it's actually a live tree. Why shouldn't an artificial tree be used in this situation?

I don't remember a single tree from my home town. The O.P. apparently fondly remembers this tree, and it was a part of the local community. Why cut it down so some people in Manhattan can gawk at it for a month? Seriously, this is insanity.

[Berry Cool]

17. Do not cry for the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

Rather, cry for the poor innocent plants you probably eat every day...the cruel way they're confined in factory gardens, unable to even turn around in place in their soil...sprayed with deadly pesticides...the merciless way they're yanked out of the ground, their limbs pulled or sliced off...the way they're dismembered while still alive...then sent to your table, raw or cooked, for you to cruelly eat.

Think of all the pain they suffer.

When they do, you'll become a nothingtarian.

[ContinentalOp]

18. Haha, cute. I'm not talking about some Buddhist sanctity of life B.S. though.

I'm talking about pure aesthetics. Why would you cut down a great tree from one place just to put it up temporarily in another place, when it could live in it's original location for decades to come? Do you seriously think anyone would care if the Rockefeller Center tree was real or artificial?

I live in Los Angeles though where too many people are morons about trees. We have such a lack of good trees as it is and then people hack them apart and top them and commit all manner of aesthetic atrocities. I'm not worried about the tree being in pain or anything, I just recognize the fact that if we weren't all so willing to trim, butcher and cut down trees in urban areas, the whole country would look a hell of a lot better.

[Liberal_in_LA]

13. More than one tree is sacrificed for these big public treess. In Los Angeles

I watched them put up a huge public tree (several stories high). They filled in bare spots with large branches that must have come from another large tree. Holes were drilled and live branches were stuck in there using the same method as assembling an artificial tree.

[ContinentalOp]

15. My grandfather used to do that with their Christmas tree.

He would cut off branches, drill holes and reposition the branches to make the tree look more even. He's a little obsessive that way. He switched to an artificial tree years ago though.

[Liberal_in_LA]

20. funny how much effort is put into making a live tree look 'natural". ha!

[ContinentalOp]

22. Yeah, at that point you may as well use an artificial tree.

Although you wouldn't get that great "christmas tree smell" then. I'm not sure how this is a factor in Rockefeller Center though.

[populistdriven]

25. no one is sadder than the pine bark beetles who must now make it in DC

[Hubert Flottz]

26. After all, the Rockefellers have given so much to America.

The Ludlow Massacre

A lot more than 2,000 miles separated the Rockefeller estate from Southern Colorado when on Monday April 20, 1914, the first shot was fired at Ludlow. One of history's most dramatic confrontations between capital and labor — the so-called Ludlow massacre — took place at the mines of the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I).

The face-off raged for fourteen hours, during which the miners' tent colony was pelted with machine gun fire and ultimately torched by the state militia. A number of people were killed, among them two women and eleven children who suffocated in a pit they had dug under their tent. The deaths were blamed on John D. Rockefeller Jr. For years, he would struggle to redress the situation - and strengthen the Rockefeller social conscience in the process.

Contemporary voices provide a rare window into the divide that separated the Rockefellers from some of the harsh realities tied to their business decisions. They powerfully illustrate the clashing viewpoints that were at the heart of the crisis and shed light on Rockefeller's ultimate transformation. MORE...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rockefellers/sfeature/sf_8.html

http://members.tripod.com/~RedRobin2/index-29.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre

Rockefeller's PR man Ivy Lee, really did his job I guess.