A small army of workers and onlookers descended on Shelton’s Kazo Drive Thursday morning to watch a 76-foot Norway spruce embark on a journey that will end with the tree finding a new home as the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree.
The tree is from the yard of the Vargoshe family. Noah Vargoshe, a seventh-grader at Shelton Intermediate School, wrote about the tree in his school’s newspaper, the SIS Viking, Wednesday.
Vargoshe wrote that though it’s bittersweet not having the tree in his front yard anymore, he’s happy it will make people happy at its new location in New York City.
Louise Vargoshe told WTNH Thursday that she submitted a picture of the tree to Rockefeller Center in January, and that its head gardener knocked on her door in March wanting to get more pictures of the spruce.
“The rest is history,” Vargoshe told WTNH.
It’s the second time in six years that a tree from Shelton was selected to be showcased at Rockefeller Center.
Cops had been guarding the big spruce since word got out last month that it had been selected as workers have been preparing for the move, wrapping its branches.
On Thursday, the 12-ton tree was cut from its roots with the help of a huge crane, then moved onto a 115-foot-long flatbed truck for the move.
The tree will be erected in New York City Friday, and the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting ceremony will take place Dec. 4.
For more pictures, check out this report in the Shelton Herald.
Click here for a report from the Hartford Courant.
The Connecticut Post was also on hand Thursday morning and filed this report.
WTNH’s report is embedded below.
