Paul Bass Photo
Parks department heavy equipment operator Don Iannuzzi and arborist Jeff Ryan Monday tighten guy wires supporting the tree.
New Haven’s chosen holiday tree this year turned out too dessicated to transport to the Green — so the city turned to Plan B.
The tree.
Plan B was the Alling Memorial Golf Course.
There, by the ninth hole, a parks and rec cut crew down a 60-foot Norway maple and transported it Monday to the lower Green, where it will be adorned with 30,000 lights for the upcoming holiday season.
Seth Harris of East Haven originally agreed to donate a Norway maple on his property for the Christmas tree. Parks and rec workers went his house last week to cut it down.
They found it “extremely brittle,” reported parks and rec chief Rebecca Bombero.
“When the limbs were being tied up, they started to break,” she said. “We knew it wouldn’t make the move.” The area has been suffering a drought.
Luckily, Bombero had a back-up plan: hit the municipal golf course. The city found the ideal spruce by the ninth hole, undamaged by the drought.
“Everybody wanted us to take the tree next” to the one the city chose to tear down, because it blocks a lot of golf shots. But that one wasn’t straight enough, she said.
As the crew attached “guy wire” cables to the tree and buried “dead soldier” cement blocks in the ground on the Green Monday, city officials gathered to announce plans for a toy and coat and food drive to accompany this year’s holiday events, highlighted by the annual tree-lighting ceremony. Wells Fargo is hosting a drop-off spot at its offices across from the Green for people to donate canned food. The Connecticut Food Bank is partnering with the city for the first time on this year’s activities. Mayor Toni Harp said the planning dovetailed with her administration’s “ongoing kindness initiative.”
City arts czar Andy Wolff (left) and Bombero (center) with representatives from Wells Fargo, the fire union, the marines, and the food bank at Monday’s tree event.