MANHATTAN — Hundreds hoisted their phones in the air at Rockefeller Center on Wednesday night as, first with a flicker and then a bright burst, the world-famous Christmas tree was lit.
Sting, James Taylor, Carly Rae Jepsen, Mayor Bill de Blasio and a host of other people joined in the lighting ceremony that kicked off at 8 p.m.
The 80-year-old Norway Spruce, which stands at 78 feet, was installed in the center Nov. 6 after it was felled in Ulster County, where it stood over a family's home for four generations.
But the tree almost never made it to the world-famous stage because its previous owners were considering knocking it down themselves, they said.
"We submitted it online as more of a joke than anything but Rockefeller Center's head gardener showed up at our door a few months after," said its previous owner Albert Asendorf, a retired maintenance agent from SUNY New Paltz.