NYC’s Rockefeller Center’s 2009 Christmas tree is 76-foot Norway spruce from Connecticut

NYC’s Rockefeller Center tree is spruce from Conn.

EASTON, Conn. — The star attraction at New York’s Rockefeller Center this Christmas will be a 76-foot Norway spruce from Connecticut.

Crews cut down the 10-ton tree Wednesday morning at the Easton home of schoolteacher Maria Corti.

The spruce will be hoisted by a crane onto a trailer and transported about 50 miles to New York City. The tree will be erected at the center Thursday.

Marketing director Keith Douglas says Rockefeller Center does aerial searches for a Christmas tree and spotted Corti’s spruce as a good candidate.

After Christmas, the tree will be donated to Habitat For Humanity to use as wood for a home in Connecticut.

Last year’s Rockefeller Center tree was a 72-foot-tall Norway spruce from Hamilton, N.J. The owners had used it as their first Christmas tree in 1931.