76-foot spruce cut in upstate New York heads to Rockefeller Center

A 76-foot Norway spruce about 75 years old was cut at 8:03 a.m. on Nov. 5, 2026, in West Edmeston, New York. Donated by the Decker family, it measures 50 feet across and weighs roughly 11 tons. A man in a yellow vest and hardhat started a chainsaw that sputtered before the cut. A 160-foot crane dangled the tree above its stump and swung it onto a roughly 100-foot flatbed on State Route 8. Workers spent about four hours strapping it for the approximately 200-mile trip to Manhattan, with arrival expected Nov. 7, 2026. NYS Department of Transportation spokesperson Anya Kardos said events like this do not happen overnight and take a lot of planning, with staff arriving around 5 a.m. after a week of visits. West Edmeston resident Tammy Johnson watched from across the road at the Button family farm and said the moment was tear jerking, happy and sad at the same time; she and her daughter anticipate the Dec. 2 lighting. Once installed, the tree will hold more than 50,000 LED lights on about five miles of wire and a 900-pound Swarovski star with about 3 million crystals, remain through Jan. 9, 2027, and then be milled for Habitat for Humanity.