Thomas Breen photo
This year’s New Haven Green holiday tree hails all the way from … Bristol Street, just a few blocks from where the 60-foot Norwegian spruce now stands in anticipation of December’s lighting fest
The city Parks Department’s two tree trimmers, two tree foremen, and deputy director joined a volunteer crew from Branford’s Smedley Crane & Rigging Monday to install the 6,500-pound holiday centerpiece in the middle of the New Haven Green.
Over the next few weeks, two parks department staffers will entwine every branch of the tree with LED lights, upwards of 30,000 in total, which will be turned on in a flash during the Dec. 5 tree lighting ceremony and festival.
Usually, city Tree Trimmer Adam Wambolt (pictured) and city Tree Warden and Parks Department Deputy Director Bill Carone said Monday, the Green’s holiday tree comes from the golf course on the east side of town or from surrounding suburbs like East Haven, Branford, or, like last year, Prospect.
This year, the parks department stayed local, snagging the towering Norwegian spruce, with permission, from the front yard of Samuel and Ophelia Smith at 60 Bristol St. near Scantlebury Park.
The parks department had been looking for a worthy candidate for the Green since July, Wambolt said, scouring the city and surrounding regions for, ideally, a Norwegian spruce, at least 40 to 50 feet tall, with a “proper shape,” no browning, no missing branches.
“We want a perfect shape,” he said.
City Tree Trimmer Kevin Gauvin shoveling dirt to stabilize the newly installed tree.
And about a month ago, city staffers found it. On Bristol Street. The sole tree on the front lawns of the Smiths’ property.
Carone said that the Smiths, who were not present at Monday’s tree installation, were happy to part with the tree. It was a little too close for comfort to their house, Carone said, and they were worried about it toppling during a storm.
So for the past month, he said, two parks department staffers have been making trips out to Bristol Street to tie up the tree in rope.
Then on Monday morning at around 7:30, Wambolt said, the tree crew headed out to Bristol along with representatives from Frontier Communications and United Illuminating. The power and cable companies dropped the wires snaking through the tree top, he said.
One tree trimmer installed a choker at the tree’s top for a Smedly crane to latch onto as Wambolt cut the tree at its base. The crane then lifted the tree from the Smiths’ yard and laid it on a trailer and ferried it down to the Green.
At around 11:15, the crew lifted the tree off the trailer, put it in a pre-dug hole at the center of the Green and attached four cable lines tied to anchors that are in the ground year round.
“It’s really special to have this representation of the holiday spirit,” said Wambolt, a 29-year-old Wallingford native who now lives in the Elm City.
“We really wanted to stay local this year,” added Carone (pictured, with Mayor Toni Harp).
In fact, Carone said, his goal for next year is to convince the mayor and the Proprietors of the Green, the private, self-perpetrating organization that legally owns the Green, to plant a permanent holiday tree on the Green.
That way, he said, city parks staffers won’t have to spend all that work time driving around the city, looking for a tree, cutting it down, and installing it downtown.
The department could water and fertilize it over the course of the year so that it remains healthy and attractive, he said.
Plus, “we wouldn’t have to go around and cut down a perfectly healthy tree.”
Click on a Facebook Live video below to watch Monday’s press conference.
'Twould have been really neat, since this is entirely a local story, if you could have gotten photos of the tree both in the Smiths' yard, and on its way through city streets.
Where is former reporter Thomas MacMillan and his memorable photo-journalism when we need him?!