Santa Claus Visits Roosevelt Island Tonight For Tree Lighting Ceremony - A Wonderful Time, Here's What Happened
Image of 2011 Roosevelt Island Christmas Tree
Wonderful time this eventing at the 2011 Roosevelt Island Tree Lighting Ceremony. The temperature was crisp and cool, the crowd festive and entertainers terrific. Then came the big moment with the arrival of Santa Claus and the lighting of the Roosevelt Island Christmas/Holiday Tree.
If you were not there, or just want to see it again, here's what happened
You Tube Video of 2011 Roosevelt Island Tree Lighting Ceremony
and a walk around the lit trees.
You Tube Video of Roosevelt Island Tree Lights
Kudos to the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) and particularly Community Relations Specialist Erica Spencer-El for staging the festivities.
Prior to the arrival of Santa Claus and the Tree Lighting, the crowd was treated to Holiday Carols from the Main Street Theater & Dance Alliance and a Gospel Choir as well as a ballet performance of the Nutcracker from the Deb Dancers. Videos of the performances will be posted later.
UPDATE 12/2 - Here's how the Festivities began with co-hosts Ms. Spencer-El and Roosevelt Island Seniors Association President Delores Green,
followed by a song from the Main Street Theater & Dance Alliance,
an excerpt from the Nutcracker Ballet by the Deb Dancers
and Silent Night from the Gospel Choir.
10 comments :
In previous years, without the vertical strings of lights, the tree was much prettier. This year it looks like a kindergarten project of a tree wearing a crinoline.
Agreed. This year it looks like they didn't take their time to put the lights into the tree. It looks like they just dumped them on it.
It's such a shame. The tree has wonderful upward pointing branches that look like smiles. That is the shape that should have been emphasized. Last year I thought the Blackwell House tree was one of the prettiest in the city. This year, blech.
I do wish RIOC would hire someone to decorate the tree and Blackwell house in a more beautiful, festive and fashionable manner. Also, call it a Christmas tree on the posters and in the WIRE, not The Tree lighting, after all, a Minora is called a Minora, not a metal thing with lights. I saw the RIOC staff that day doing the lights, they were in a hurry and really not caring how all the lights went up, they just wanted to get them up. That whole area is such a wonderful place, too bad it is not decorated nicer. I also think the boy scouts should set up by the Kiosk next to the Tram with there Christmas trees, a couple thousand people a day walk by there and might buy a tree to take home as well. Good luck boyscouts we love you!
have any of you read this article mentioning Westview and Island House and the school wanting to move here? Another interesting view of it all. I for one hope we get the campus!
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20111113/SUB/311139980
I think I speak for the children when I say: it's not much fun waiting an hour and half (8:30) for Santa, no hot cider permitted, no food, no goody bags ... all on a school night. As an adult, I'd like to see singers/dancers, but why make the kids suffer? It's been this same crummy schedule for kids three years in a row. I've run into kids and parents don't want to do this Santa show any more. Really, at what age is your target audience of children who want to wait 90 minutes in a gated pen?
I was nice to see the Main Street Theatre, but the ballet number could have been easily done by MSTDA's ballet students (their recitals are fantastic), and I miss the singing from the kids in the youth program and schools.
On a technical note, it made no sense to light the stage from behind in red/green ... couldn't see people on stage, everyone was just silhouettes. The miking was terrible, really difficult to hear everyone. The announcers/MCs should have been higher (rather than invisible in the pit).
Here's my suggestions for the future:
- start the event at 6:30
- light the tree right away, don't wait until the end (families don't have to wait an hour to get a photo)
- use singers, dancers, and performers from the Island and its organizations (Main Street Theatre, Youth Program, schools, etc.)
- run the Santa line in parallel with the show
- give kids their goody bags when they see Santa, don't make them wait on another line
- allow people to eat/drink during the show, really cider can't be that expensive that it has to be withheld until the end of the show
- own the stage equipment, RIOC does enough events that it shouldn't have to rent anymore; MSTDA could advise on lighting the stage
- Santa can be local, too (Mr. Bryan? Mr. Kraut?)
It's actually, "menorah."
Agreed, it's way, way too long. It's too long to hold adults' attention, let alone kids. I stopped taking my kids to it a couple years ago after an uproariously absurd stampede for cider and donuts capped off an interminable wait in the cold.
We skipped last year and this year. The fact that it is on a school night was pretty much the deciding factor. Also I had a big problem with the lack of talent of the performers a couple years back and the way kids are allowed by their parents to cut in line left and right the closer you got to Santa (while we idiots waited patiently in line like our parents taught us many decades ago). I really prefer seeing Macy's Santa on Christmas Eve over this.
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