I THINK that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
–Joyce Kilmer
The freshly cut Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree is laid on a flatbed for its trip to New York City.
Two years ago, a friend of Maria Corti told her about a house that was for sale in Easton that she thought would be perfect for her. Maria, a fifth grade teacher at Cider Mill School in Wilton, wasn’t really looking to purchase a house at that time; however, she decided there was no harm in looking.
Maria Corti stands under the bough of her Norway Spruce.
The first thing she noticed upon arriving at the property was the ‘unbelievably beautiful’ Norway spruce towering over the rear of the house.”It was close enough for me to touch it if I opened the bedroom window and reached out,” she recalled. Looking at the tree, she also had a fleeting thought of the tree that stands majestically in Rockefeller Center every year.
Unfortunately a few months later, when Maria realized that the house was perfect for her, she was informed that it had been sold. A year later, that same friend who had introduced her to the Easton house with the magnificent evergreen, told her that the house was on the market again. This time Maria moved quickly and bought the house.
One of the first things she did to the property was clear some of the wooded acreage. The excavator cautioned Maria about the likelihood that the Norway spruce backing her house might fall on it and suggested she have it removed.
David Murbach supervises the wrapping of the tree with the Rockefeller Center tarp.
The fleeting thought she had when she first saw the tree returned and called Rockefeller Center and suggest they take a look at her tree. She was asked to send a photo – with someone or something beside the tree to gauge it’s height. She sent the photograph on February 28.
According to David Murbach, the person who has selected the Rockefeller tree candidates for the past 26 years, “We get hundreds of calls every week. But when I saw the photograph, I decided to take a closer look.”
He actually took a bird’s eye view from a helicopter; and even before the chopper got to the coordinates of their destination, he could see a ‘grand evergreen’ in the distance. “I wondered if that could be the tree.”
Easton P.D. were out in force to guard and escort the ‘famous’ Christmas tree.
Maria had told David that he would know it was the right tree if he saw a horse trailer under it. “And sure enough, there was the trailer,” he recalled.
In early spring, Rockefeller Center sent a crew to the Corti residence to fertilize the tree; and in the summer installed a 1700 water tank in order to hose the tree from the top to keep the branches hydrated. – They did this even though a decision on which tree would be selected had not been made. Throughout the summer and early fall, several representatives from Rockefeller Center visited the Easton tree, including Tom Madden, the managing director of Rockefeller Center. “He pulled into my driveway, got out and looked at the tree, and left.
It wasn’t until the first week of October, when members of the Center’s public relations office and a representative from Tishman Speyer, the owners of Rockefeller Center, came to Maria’s house, that she knew her tree had been chosen. “They personally conveyed an invitation to me to donate the 2009 Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.”
Maria Corti and David Murbach stand before the tarp covered tree.
During the week it took to draw up the contract, Maria became conflicted about whether to donate the tree. “I kept thinking that maybe it should be left to nature to decide when the tree should come down. And then of course, I thought that if I passed by this great opportunity to see the tree in Rockefeller Center and the tree did fall, then it would just be cut up and hauled away and no one would ever enjoy its grandeur.”
Flooded with childhood memories of her visits to her grandmother’s Manhattan apartment every holiday season and their trips to see the Rockefeller Center tree, Maria finally decided that she “would share this splendid Norway spruce with the people of the world.”
The contract Maria signed included a confidentiality clause which forbade her from telling anyone about the selection of her tree for Rockefeller Center. And she kept her secret.
Where the mighty spruce once proudly stood.
Two weeks before the tree was to be cut down, the Center hired the Easton police department to guard the tree twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Five days before the ‘big event,’ a crew came to Easton to tie the tree, “and my neighbors started to take notice.”On Tuesday November 10, Maria put in the mailboxes of her neighbors, an invitation to partake in a wonderful event. That evening, before going to dinner with David Murbach, Maria, David and a
w”whole team of people” sat in her living room and talked about the tree.”
The big day, November 11, began at 4am when the public relations people from Rockefeller Center arrived, followed by the caterers at 5am. At 9:45, the 77 foot tall Norway spruce was separated from the base of its trunk and lifted from the site it had occupied for the last 60 years.
“When the crew was laying it down on the flatbed,, they were very gentle with it,” said Maria. She then walked over to the tree and kissed it.
“The reality set in when they put the tarp on the tree,” she said, looking back on the day.
The baby blue tarp with giant white snowflakes was secured around the tree as it laid on the 18-wheel flatbed trailer.. It read: The Tree, Rockefeller Center, 2009.
The crew who cut down the tree presented three ‘wafers’ from its trunk to Maria. She intends to have tables constructed from them.
Trumbull motorcycle police escourt the tree onto the country road.
An escort of Trumbull motorcycle police and Easton police led the tree to the turnpike, where the CT State Police took over. As the truck pulled slowly down the country road, Maria walked a short distance behind it and called to the crew, “Take good care of my tree.”
On a damp December 2 evening, the 30,000 lights were switched on Maria’s tree for the first time. An estimated 100,000 plus people viewed the tree lighting at Rockefeller Center, while millions more saw it on television or the web. The world really did celebrate this night with Maria Corti of Easton, who said quietly, “It’s like a dream come true.”
Maria follows her tree for a short way, wishing it farewell..