Green Christmas in New York

Rockefeller Center: Christmas Tree and Angels

The tree at Rockefeller Center is green this year – not just evergreen – it’s covered in LED lights and was hand cut somewhere in Jersey. Solar panels have been installed on the top of Rockefeller Plaza, making it the largest privately owned solar energy roof in Manhattan. The solar panels are charging up the tree and will continue to provide energy to the area year round.

People flock to the lighting and tourists come from far and wide to view it throughout the season. Years ago, when my niece first saw it she was not all that impressed. “It’s just a tree.” If you’ve seen one tree, you’ve seen them all I suppose. At 10 years old she had seen enough. “Let’s go shopping.”

Midtown Manhattan Vendors

I always try to imagine what a tourist feels upon landing in New York’s JFK Airport and heading into Manhattan during the Christmas season. Ahh, the smell on the streets of dirty waters and hot pretzels, mingling with the stench of the countless buses passing by. (There are only a few green buses in NY’s fleet).

I can easily spot tourists out on the street and in restaurants. They’re almost always smiling. They’ll chat you up in line at a  store. When they’re not smiling they have a look of shock on their face, like they had not expected this Christmas fantasy trip to be so darn cold or so incredibly expensive.

It’s not that New Yorkers don’t smile. They do. They know how to have a good time. They just don’t smile and say good morning to perfect strangers from the midwest. It’s against their religion I think. Like a cranky baby, you have to earn smiles from New Yorkers.

Ice Skating in Rockefeller Center beneath the Christmas Tree

The thing that shocked me most about NYC as a child (and it is more troubling during the holiday season) is the contrasts of the city. The wealth and excess right next to the extreme lack. A homeless person leaning against the wall of Tiffany’s or lingering near St. Patrick’s Cathedral while some of the most wealthy people in the world walk by pretending not to notice. Beauty and splendor next to filth and decay. It always reminds me that there is something terribly wrong with our world.

“Throw me in some shallow water before I get too deep” Edie Brickell

My first adventure in ice skating was in Rockefeller Plaza. I was 3. A couple of years ago I took my girls there to skate, to carry on the tradition. We had to stop at the American Girl Store first, of course.

All I remember about the skating was how lucky we were to have the rink almost completely to ourselves, which is great with a 2-year-old. How does that happen? It was 14 degrees. No one else was dumb enough to get out there. It took us 20 minutes to get our skates on (because my hands were shaking from the cold), cleaned out what was left in my wallet after the American Girl Store, and we skated for a full 7 minutes.

Revolving Doors: Free entertainment for all ages!

The memories will last a lifetime, right?

What do my kids remember? Well, they spent the entire outing searching for revolving doors. We spun through every revolving door in a 10 block radius of Rockefeller Plaza. Let me tell you, in case you are not familiar with the area, that’s a lot of doors.

We don’t have many of them out here in the wilds of Connecticut.

Maybe someone needs to make revolving doors green by catching all the energy produced by people going through them all day. Or get a bunch of kids to run through them constantly like little hamsters in a exercise wheel. My kids would gladly volunteer for the job.

Enough already.

Here is a clip from the movie Elf starring Will Ferrell. A Little Christmas in Manhattan for you:

Did you catch my favorite scene? Obviously, the revolving door! My kids still get a kick out of that scene and want to know when they can go spin through some revolving doors again. Maybe we can stop in to see the tree at Rockefeller Center and enjoy a green Christmas in New York on our way.