Fir-geddaboudit! Meet the New Yorker behind the Rockefeller Center tree — who scouts 100 hopefuls across 6 states each year
NY Post
He’s a real conifer-sseur.
A visit to the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree — dizzyingly tall, dazzlingly lit — is one of NYC’s most treasured holiday rituals.
And behind every sky-high stunner chopped down and brought into the Big Apple to make spirits bright at Christmastime stands just one man with an eye for perfection — most likely one of the only people toiling away in Midtown’s concrete jungle at the job of Head Gardener.
But that’s exactly what Erik Pauze does at Rockefeller Center, where he’s toiled for four decades — the 58-year-old Long Islander told The Post he scouts “easily” 100 trees in a six-state radius each year, saying fir-geddaboudit! to any number of lesser specimens before determining exactly which one is ready for prime time.
The 2024 winner that arrived Saturday — and will be lit with the usual fanfare on Dec. 4 — is a 74-foot-tall, 11-ton Norway Spruce that is also 43 feet in diameter.
The awe-inspiring ornament hails from the tony Berkshires village of West Stockbridge, Mass. — it’s the first Bay State beauty to take pride of place in the fabled plaza since 1959.
Franki Priore will be all dressed in white at her wedding this November — and not hyper-focused on whoever just won the White House.