Rockefeller Center tree gets greener

NEW YORK – The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree is going “greener” – with energy-saving lights replacing old-fashioned bulbs on the towering evergreen this year.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he hoped the change to the Manhattan display will inspire the tens of millions of New Yorkers and tourists who see the tree.

The 84-foot-tall Norway spruce will be covered with 30,000 multicolored light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, strung on five miles of wire.

Using the energy-efficient LEDs to replace incandescent bulbs will reduce the display’s electricity consumption from 3,510 to 1,297 kilowatt hours per day. The daily savings is equal to the amount of electricity consumed by a typical 2,000-square-foot house in a month.

After the official tree-lighting ceremony on Nov. 28, the Christmas tree will be illuminated from 5:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. most days through the first week of January.

The Rockefeller Center tradition was started in 1931, when construction workers building the first part of the office building complex erected a 20-foot balsam fir amid the site’s mud and rubble.

After the tree is taken down in January, it will be cut into lumber to be used in houses built by Habitat for Humanity.