TOUR THE TOWN AND DISCOVER THE CITY’S OTHER CHRISTMAS TREE GEMS
If you can’t bear the thought of wading through the madding crowds admiring the 75-foot Norway spruce at Rockefeller Center, there are plenty of other wonderful alternatives in less frantic parts of the city. An impressive Renaissance-style courtyard is the calm setting of the 30-foot Lotte New York Pal
ace tree (455 Madison Ave.), which has 3,000 lights featuring white and gold ornaments with a rich redand-gold ribbon winding through its branches for a winter-snow theme.
Meanwhile, between 400 and 500 pounds of chocolate were used to construct the lip-smacking 7-foot-6-inch tree in the window of luxury confectionery store Godiva ( 52 W. 50th St.), just a block away from the exhausting Rockefeller action. Executive chef Thierry Muret teamed up with chocolate sculptor Paul Joachim to create the delicacy, which includes a replica of the nearby famous Prometheus statue. Staffers will get to nosh on the chocolate once it’s dismantled on Jan. 2.
Moving uptown, more than 1,000 pieces of origami are displayed on the spectacular 13-foot tree inside the American Museum of Natural History ( Central Park West at 79th Street, general admission $13 kids, $23 adults). Volunteers from around the world spent the past year making the origami, inspired by the museum’s current exhibition, “Our Senses: An Immersive Experience” ( AMNH.org/Exhibitions/Our-Senses). Expect to see everything from optical illusions to a hammerhead shark and a beluga whale in those paper designs.