Brooklyn Heights Promenade Christmas Tree is Lit!

By on December 16, 2009 9:17 pm in Brooklyn Heights

BHB contributor Karl Junkersfeld braved the icy cold temperatures to bring us this video of Montague Street holiday cheer and the annual lighting of the Brooklyn Heights Promenade Christmas Tree.

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  • Ben T

    Why doesn’t anyone take the time to put lights on these trees correctly? Look at all those gaps! Take note – Rockefeller tree is excellent, promenade and borough hall trees are abominations to the holiday. It looks like a jolly Christmas giant walked by and vomited lights all over them.

  • nabeguy

    Those are exactly the same decorations that they had on the tree back when I was a kid…same wooden bells, socks and diamonds, although it looks like they’ve painted them sometime over the past 45 or so years. I wonder who’s in charge of storing them all year? Probably in a box in a closet of Markowitz’s office.

  • Me

    Ben are you volunteering for the job? I dont know all the details but Im pretty sure this is all done by volunteers (from the Garden Club, I think) who have an electrician handle the lights. I can’t stand all the complaining followed by no action. Although, I agree it could have been done with more care, it kind of makes me laugh to see it and I can appreciate the humor in it’s imperfection.

  • bornhere

    I think nabe is right about the vintage decorations, which I STILL love, and I kind of like that it doesn’t look as though it were “brought to you by the tree decorating professionals.” It is not the most elegant of efforts, but it is about the Season (although C7s or C9s would have been neat) and it was done for everyone by a few. Nice job, once again.

  • Billy Reno

    The Chorale didn’t sing carols down Montague St.

  • MRG6726

    Hey, Ben – thanks for your comments. I’m the Parks Department employee who erected and strung the lights and decorations at both Borough Hall and Montague. I certainly don’t represent the Parks Department in any capacity, but I can tell you there were multiple problems at both locations relating to the weather, the trees and the decorations. The tree at Borough Hall had been mishandled, and then a wind storm came through after it had been established. I used tie-wraps, tree limbs and debris from the back of my truck and small rope to reset entire limbs that had broken off of the Borough Hall tree, and that was not asked of me from my superiors. Had I not taken that upon myself to reset those limbs, the tree would most certainly look much worse.
    Over at Montague, the lights were missing and the BHGC them that day with a hardware store on Court Street. Standing that tree and running the wire through the Gleditsia along the path in 50+ mph last week was hellish enough.
    Nabe – those ornaments were kept in several contractor trash bags in our maintenance shop in the Brooklyn Parks compound. The same went for the Borough Hall decorations. Both the electricians and myself have been vocal about getting new decorations on a regular basis.
    The lights were strung and eyed on the ground by members of the crew. I normally prune and remove trees on streets and in parks. I requested this job because I do 95% of the tree work in Brooklyn Heights and because I wanted to break up the monotony.
    I’ll take your comments into consideration next year, and if I again decorate the tree, I’ll pay more attention to the placement and symmetry of the decorations and lights.
    Thanks!

  • nabeguy

    MRG, don’t touch those decorations! They’re part of Heights history, and should be kept in service for the next generation.

  • my2cents

    nabeguy, here we go again. ;-)

  • nabeguy

    I’d definitely dumpster dive for one of those socks, my2. Okay, so they’re not a part of Heights history, just mine. But please, send them my way when they’re replaced. I’ll add them to my miscellaneous collection of St. George tiles ;>)