Aliyya Swaby Photo
Maurice Gladney, a new parks employee, trims the lower branches.
Looking down on New Haven while suspended 62 feet in the air isn’t scary, after all. It’s breathtaking. Especially from above a Norway spruce newly placed on the Green.
Reporters learned that Friday as the city got started on the season by bringing in the annual holiday tree.
Parks employee Tony Rodriguez adjusts the lights.
City parks employee Jeff Ryan helped the reporters into a giant bucket and lifted them for a bird’s‑eye view of the city. He operated the lift in between beginning the task, along with other city workers, of trimming the spruce and hanging decorations, to prepare it for Dec. 4’s holiday lighting ceremony.
“Let me know when you’re ready,” Ryan called out from his perch on top of the truck. With the OK, he pulled a lever and bucket began to rise, nudged by the wind.
People’s United Bank rep Michael Casparino (left) with Harp and Bombero
Mayor Toni Harp wore a sticker on her lapel that read “Nice” (as opposed to “Naughty”) as she welcomed the tree to the Green and recognized the parks employees who worked to get it there, in good condition.
New Haven is the “first city in America to plant trees publicly, so trees have always been important” to the community, she said.
Christy Hass, the city’s tree warden (and deputy parks chief), said this year’s spruce was the most difficult to move in, because it’s so wide. The 14,600 pound tree will eventually be dressed in almost 30,000 lightbulbs, she said.
People’s United Bank’s $18,000 sponsorship pays for costs associated with managing the tree, including electricity and employee overtime, parks chief Rebecca Bombero said. The city is beginning a toy drive at the police substations — one person who donates will be selected to join the mayor onstage to light the tree.
Mayor Harp said a “special visitor” will come to Dec. 4’s ceremony for the city’s children.