100 Years of 100 Things: New York City Christmas Traditions

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David Furst: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning. I'm David Furst, WNYC's Weekend Edition host, filling in for Brian. Now we continue our WNYC Centennial Series, 100 Years of 100 Things. We've made it up to thing 48, 100 Years of New York City Christmas Traditions. Our guide for this is Valerie Paley, former chief historian at New York Historical, now senior vice president and director of its library, as well as the founding director of its Center for Women's History, and we are told, its resident expert on Christmas traditions in New York. Welcome.

Valerie Paley: [chuckles] Thank you, David.

David Furst: Justified title there?

Valerie Paley: I don't know. I think that others would compete with that mantle. I'm here with you today.

David Furst: It's great to have you with us, and listeners, from Midtown's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade that ushers in Santa Claus to the Rockettes, the Rockefeller Center tree to the Nutcracker at Lincoln Center. I mean, there's a reason why we have so many gridlock alert days around the holidays as families are traveling to all of the hotspots in the city to keep their traditions going. Let's hear your oral histories of how these places and performances have become secular family Christmas rituals. Or maybe your family has other special Christmas displays that you go to check out or shows that you leave home for every year.

Yes, we are focusing on the secular or commercial, not the religious side of the holiday today. Tell us your story. 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You can call or text. Valerie, since we're talking about Christmas in New York City, before we get to the 20th century items I mentioned, can we start a bit before 1924 and acknowledge how much the country owes to New York in how Christmas is celebrated, especially when it comes to Santa Claus.

Valerie Paley: Oh, absolutely. Now you're in my wheelhouse because I was told it was only the last hundred years. I represent New York's first museum, which just celebrated its 220th anniversary.

David Furst: Wow.

Valerie Paley: We go way back, and we have stories from way back. Of course, Santa Claus is very much associated with New York because he was particularly celebrated in the Netherlands where there was a holiday called Sinterklaas, which happens annually on December 6th, just last week. The Dutch to whom we owe our lineage brought their devotion to Saint Nicholas with them to New Amsterdam. New Yorkers of Dutch and other heritages grew up in the late 17th and 18th centuries celebrating this form of the holidays. Represented by this Sinterklaas fellow.

As we move along into the Revolution and the British takeover of New York, New Amsterdam became New York, we developed an additional interest in Dutch culture because, funnily enough, because of a distaste for the British after the US gained its independence, so little fun fact there. Washington Irving, the humorist of the 19th century, wrote a satirical history of Dutch New York under the pen name Diedrich Knickerbocker. He mingled these historical facts with his own imagination, wrote up this image of Saint Nicholas as having a broad hat, a long pipe. Many of the iconography, the image that we have of Santa Claus now comes from this.

We are quite delighted, as New York Historical's first museum, to have been associated with Washington Irving and some of his cohort, including John Pintard, founder of the New York Historical. He loved this idea of closely associating Saint Nicholas with New York City and even tried unsuccessfully to get Saint Nicholas, i.e. Santa Claus named the patron saint of New York. We then moved to the Clement Clarke Moore the night before Christmas. He was also a big New York Historical member. He wrote this famous poem about Saint Nick over in Chelsea where he worked. I think we owe a lot or New Yorkers are very much associated with Santa Claus and the holidays. It goes way, way back to the 17th century.

David Furst: Well, it certainly caught on.

Valerie Paley: Oh, yes.

David Furst: Now, I might have to pull you out of your wheelhouse there because moving into the last 100 years now, 1924 was the first Macy's Parade, which was originally called a Christmas parade. Even now, as the Thanksgiving Parade, ushers in Santa Claus.

Valerie Paley: Exactly--

David Furst: What inspired this parade?

Valerie Paley: Yes. Well, the first one, the first Thanksgiving Day parade was in 1924, 100 years ago. It was called the Macy's Christmas Parade. The name changed in 1927 to the Thanksgiving Parade. The first parade featured costumed employees, floats, bands, animals on loan from the Central Park Zoo, which is a little bit dicey. It celebrated Macy's newly expanded Herald Square location that year, which was at that time the largest retail store in the world. It kicked off, as it still does in many ways, the official start of the holiday retail season.

It was a group of workers at Macy's. They were mostly European immigrants and they wanted to celebrate American Thanksgiving with a European parade tradition. The first parade had a kind of festive, homegrown Macy's quality to it, which we still see, although the parade route has changed, it originated in Harlem originally, and now it originates at our very corner, 77th and Central Park West, where our headquarters are, New York Historical. We feel very, very akin to that parade as well.

David Furst: Has Santa always played a prominent role in the parade?

Valerie Paley: Indeed he has. He always brought up the rear, except for in 1932 when he actually led the parade. I'm not sure what was so special about 1932-

David Furst: Interesting.

Valerie Paley: -but that was the case, but in fact, yes, he's always been very much a part of this. It has sort of a dramatic wow finish to quite festive harbinger of the holidays.

David Furst: I mean, you really can't follow Santa, right? That's a tough job. Now, listeners--

Valerie Paley: Best that he takes it up -- [crosstalk]

David Furst: It's exactly right.

Valerie Paley: [unintelligible 00:07:12] Exactly.

David Furst: Now, listeners, do you take part in any of the big New York City Christmas traditions? The Rockettes, anyone? Rockefeller Center. Call or text, 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. I just mentioned the Rockettes. One of the groups that appears in the Macy's Parade is the Rockettes. They also take center stage at the annual Radio City Christmas Spectacular. I understand they are also exactly 100 years old, but they started in St. Louis.

Valerie Paley: They did.

David Furst: When did they become part of New York's Christmas?

Valerie Paley: They were founded in St. Louis in 1925. They became very closely associated with Radio City Music Hall as the opening night act in 1932. Their first Christmas Spectacular, Rockettes, was in 1933 and premiered these iconic numbers which are still done, such as the March of the Wooden Soldiers and, of course, the Living Nativity at the Christmas show, which it's still performed today. The Rockettes officially became the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes in 1934. As for the parade, they performed in every Macy's parade since 1957. I think that the Rockettes, safe to say the Rockettes are no longer associated with St. Louis, but with New York City and Radio City.

David Furst: Wow. We have a text right now. Someone writing in to talk about a lovely twist on a New York annual Christmas tradition is, the text says, my daughter dancing in the Nutcracker at New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center. It's as magical for the student dancers as it is for the audience. Last night after the show, we were riding the subway home to Brooklyn and she met some New Yorkers who had just attended the show as part of their annual tradition, and she was able to regale them with some backstage stories. It was an only in New York holiday moment playing out.

Valerie Paley: How wonderful, that's so exciting. Having been a ballet dancer myself, growing up with the Joffrey Ballet, but growing up with the New York City Ballet and the Nutcracker, that is a story that's very near and dear to me. Congratulations. It's great.

David Furst: That is a wonderful story. Thank you so much for sharing. Let's talk a little bit more about that great New York holiday tradition, New York City Ballet's Nutcracker. I mean, everyone seems to put on a production of the Nutcracker at this time of year, right? The Tchaikovsky Ballet, but this really is a New York City tradition as well.

Valerie Paley: Absolutely. I think that just the stage craft of the New York City Ballet's version is it can't be beat. The way that that particular-- the choreography, the use of children from the School of American Ballet, which is the parent school of the City Ballet, it all comes together in such a beautiful and magical way. I think there's something for everybody in that particular ballet. It was, of course, choreographed by George Balanchine, who arrived in New York in 1933, courtesy of the arts patron Lincoln Kirstein, who wanted to create an American ballet company and Balanchine was his man.

Interestingly enough about George Balanchine, he danced-- The ballet itself originated in Russia, of course. It was commissioned by Marius Petipa of the Russian Imperial Ballet in 1892, and there was choreography by Lev Ivanov. The Petipa/Ivanov version is always sort of like-- It's very much a touchstone for all versions of the Nutcracker and, of course, the famous music by Tchaikovsky. Balanchine himself, the founder of the New York City Ballet, in 1919, danced the role of the prince in the Nutcracker himself. Five years later, that iconic year, 1924, Balanchine left the Soviet Union and he never returned.

He began performing with the Ballet Russes, but with Diaghilev, but he arrived in New York in 1933, and then he, with Christine, founded the now world famous School of American Ballet the next year, and then the New York City Ballet in 1948. I don't need to overstate Balanchine's importance in the history of dance, but he is. He's our man because he served as the ballet master and chief choreographer in New York City Ballet until his death in 1983.

The thing about the Nutcracker, which is so fabulous, I mean, interestingly, some of the original 1954 costumes that were designed by Barbara Karinska are still in use. The actual costumes themselves, the grandmother's cape and some embroidery on some of the women's costumes in the tee dance from Act 2.

David Furst: Such a magical tradition, a magical production, and a smart idea, too, right? Including that many children on stage always helps to sell tickets to families, right?

Valerie Paley: Absolutely. I hear that a great deal of New York City Ballet's revenue comes from just the few weeks that they performed the Nutcracker-

David Furst: Is that right?

Valerie Paley: -in the winter. Yes. What's so interesting that the dramatic stage affects this Christmas tree that grows from 12 to 41 feet, and the snow and the flying sleigh, all of these are just so magical and really do depict the magic of the holidays and Christmas. I think that also, one interesting thing I mentioned, I was a ballet dancer myself. I was always fascinated by some of the stage tricks. Like, for example, the Sugar Plum Fairy seems to glide across the stage and back to pas de deux. That's apparently something that Balanchine picked up from his days in Russia. The ballerina steps onto a little metal plate. Somebody backstage pulls this plate. It's on a string, and so she glides. It's not like she's really gliding, but it's like there's some of these little tricks that are wonderful to watch for in this particular iteration of the ballet.

David Furst: We're speaking with Valerie Paley with New York Historical, and we're talking about New York City's Christmas traditions. We were talking about the Rockettes just a little bit before and how they started in St. Louis. Let's hear from Charles calling in to talk about the Rockettes. Welcome to the Brian Lehrer Show.

Charles: Hey, thank you very much. I wanted to tell your lovely guest that I studied the script once-- I'm an artist, but I worked as a tour guide. It was at Rockefeller center where they talked about the guy that changed the name from the Rockets to the Rockettes. It was, I think, the two sisters that danced in a part of Missouri, and they were on a Broadway show called Ham and Eggs or something. The guy that produced the Rockettes saw them like their name, but the name was really the Rockets, and it got changed to the Rockettes.

Valerie Paley: The Missouri Rockets. I see this in my notes. Yes.

David Furst: They were originally the Rockets.

Charles: Yes, the Rockets. Then I wanted to say also that a friend of mine who's a great, great ancestor to-- is in the Met, Thomas Sully. He's a painter. My friend is Thomas Sully III. His wife's a writer. One day we had dinner with Balanchine's daughter. I just want to leave you with that little story.

David Furst: Thank you so much, Charles. We also have a text about the Rockettes. Someone writing in to say, "I sat next to a Rockette at a Bruce Springsteen concert at Madison Square Garden. She was lovely. I got some insider information about some of the older numbers, including the one where they all fall backwards slowly, which is one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Go see it."'

Valerie Paley: That, of course, is in the March of the Wooden Soldiers. I think everyone waits for that, that grand finale where they all fall down.

David Furst: Thank you for the context there. We're getting some great texts. You can also call with your New York City Christmas traditions. Maybe it's one of the ones we are mentioning. Maybe it's something we don't even know about. 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Rockefeller center, home to Radio City and, of course, is a huge draw at Christmas with the tree and the skating rink. The tree came first, right? What's the story of how that came to be such an iconic New York City thing?

Valerie Paley: It happened just somewhat by happenstance, which is great. It's wonderful when such things happen so successfully. The tree, there was this sort of-- It was while Rockefeller center was being constructed, and so there was this big hole there in the ground. The tree was initially put up by Italian American construction workers in 1931. The original tree, the first one was a 20 foot balsam and, of course, in the depths--

David Furst: 20 foot?

Valerie Paley: 20 feet. That's all. [laughs] In the depths of the Great Depression, it was very sparsely decorated with garlands handmade by the workers families. This is an interesting thing that I never knew before and I learned it researching this segment, because the workers were excavating the site. They had access to the tin foil ends of the blasting caps that were being used to excavate the site. They used these caps to add a bit of like a little bit of zhuzh and sparkle to this tree, which I think is kind of wonderful. Just very handmade, homegrown tree.

The New York Times actually reported the name of the man who first brought the tree and bought it and set it up. It was a man named Cesidio Peruzza. He was an Italian immigrant from the Lazio region. Wonderful to have this very crowdsourced thing that was not nearly as commercial as it is now, for sure. The first tree lighting ceremony took place in 1933, and after that, it became an annual tradition.

David Furst: Do you know when it became this national broadcast with celebrity performers like today?

Valerie Paley: It was first televised in 1951. I'm not sure if it was nearly as elaborate as it is now, but it's been on TV since then and certainly because of just it's broadcast all over the place. As with the case of the Thanksgiving Day Parade, New York becomes central in this holiday story.

David Furst: Right up to the ball drop New Year's Eve as well.

Valerie Paley: Exactly that, too.

David Furst: Our guide for all of this today is Valerie Paley, former chief historian at New York Historical. We're getting some great calls right now. Let's hear from Molly in Brooklyn. Welcome.

Molly: Hi there. How are you?

David Furst: Great. Do you have a tradition you want to tell us about?

Molly: I do. Yes. My favorite holiday tradition actually takes place in Brooklyn every year. It's been on a bit of a hiatus the last few years, and they're coming back. It's a Charlie Brown Christmas live in Brooklyn. Honestly, it's the most charming tradition. It's just the sweetest show. They do sort of verbatim the cartoon that we all know. They do all the voices, they do the movements,, and very affordable show. All the money they make goes to a different charity every year. Supporting a good cause there, too.

David Furst: That sounds great. Could you tell us again how to get tickets?

Molly: Yes. If you go-- the ticket link is sort of long. If you go to a website called Brown Paper Tickets, and in the search bar, just search for Charlie Brown Christmas, it's the first thing that will pop up. You can buy your tickets right there. It runs the 21st and 22nd.

David Furst: Okay. Thank you very much for sharing that. We're getting some texts and calls as well. Let's take another call. Rachel calling in. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Brian Lehrer Show.

Rachel: Hi. When I was a little girl in the '60s, early '60s, my brother's godmother, and now I'm having a blank. Diana-- it'll come to me as I'm talking to you. See, I'm aging. Was one of Balanchine's favorites, and she was a principal dancer and she played Sugar Plum Fairy. We used to get to go-- We were kind of a poor family, but our mother was trying to break into theater, and our father was in network news sort of, and they knew the most interesting people. We used to get to go and have these incredible seats and then go to New York City Ballet and see the ballet and go backstage and go under the big dress.

David Furst: Oh, wow.

Rachel: That was my most vivid memory of it, and it was just the most incredible thing. Then taking my daughter years later, who grew up kind of around the country with me as I worked in children's hospitals when she was a teenager, and telling her about the magic of doing that when I was a child was just so much fun because then my best friend, husband, was the orchestra manager. I took my daughter as a teenager and we got to go backstage, and it was kind of, wow, coming all around again.

David Furst: I mean, that's the tradition right there, your memory, and then bringing your daughter. Thank you so much for sharing that, Rachel.

Valerie Paley: Perhaps the Diana you're thinking of is Diana Adams. She was a big ballerina in that period that you're talking of.

Rachel: Yes, Diana Adams. Yes.

Valerie Paley: Good.

Rachel: Really cool. She was married to Gus Allegretti at the time, so he was the puppeteer on Captain Kangaroo.

David Furst: Wow.

Valerie Paley: Wow.

David Furst: Wow. Thank you for filling in that blank, Valerie. Valerie, I think everything is your wheelhouse, quite frankly.

Valerie Paley: No, no, no.

David Furst: Another text here. "New York City was a big part of our Christmas tradition. Every year we bundled up and rode the train from Westport to tour the department store windows. B. Altman & Company, Lord & Taylor's and more. We always saw the tree at Rockefeller, and some years we skated or saw the Rockettes at Radio City. Every year, we always lit a candle at S.t Patrick's Cathedral. Best time of year. Let's hear-- Oh, my goodness. We're getting a lot of great calls. Let's hear from Robert, calling in from Ellicott City, Maryland. Welcome to the Brian Lehrer Show.

Robert: Hi, folks. How are you? Can you hear me?

David Furst: Absolutely, yeah. Do you have a Christmas tradition?

Robert: Yes, absolutely. Well, first of all, hi, New York. I just want to say Brian Lehrer should be in charge of achieving peace in the Middle East. I believe he could do it. He's wonderful. He's a real Jim. My call is a sort of a tribute to my mother, who would be 100 years old this year, too. She passed away at 98, two years ago. Her favorite thing in New York for Christmas, among a lot of things, was the tree at the Met, which I think doesn't get a lot of mention all the time, but their tree is wonderful. Not only is it wonderful, but you're also inside the Met, so you can go and see all the other amazing, joyful pieces of art that are there during Christmas and, of course, all year round.

Now, me personally, I worked at B. Altman In 1978, '79, while I was waiting to get accepted to law school, and I was in the menswear department. I got to see the designers from the store installing the windows, which was really magical to go from a kid and seeing them on the street on Fifth Avenue with the chestnuts roasting and the hot dogs and all of that. Then to be behind the scenes where they did that was really a joyful experience. May have been the best job I've ever had. I've been a judge and I'm a law professor now. I'm not even kidding. The Altmans was a perfect place to work. I really wondered if your guests could talk a little bit about the windows at the department stores, because I think that just says it all about Christmas in New York.

David Furst: Robert, thank you so much for sharing. Valerie, let's hear about that. Robert, let me just mention Ellicott City, a gorgeous downtown as well, so enjoy new traditions there. Valerie, let's hear about those windows.

Valerie Paley: Yes, the windows are certainly very much a staple of Christmas and the holidays in New York. I'm sorry, David, I have to say that that tradition goes back to the 1870s.

David Furst: Your comfort zone.

Valerie Paley: [inaudible 00:25:03] because technological advances made plate glass windows financially feasible in America, which is interesting. I have a couple fun facts from the past about store windows. Some people may know that L. Frank Baum, who wrote the Wizard of Oz, wrote about store windows before he wrote that book for which he's famous. Also, some artists you would never associate with store windows were window dressers earlier in their careers. Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg. Can you believe that? I can't, but that's in my notes.

In any case, I think since we were talking about Rockefeller Center, I think of Saks, which is Saks Fifth Avenue, which is right across the street. That store was completed in 1924, our year, 100 years ago, and it opened in September. It's interesting how Saks and Saks' move uptown really is like kind of a zoning triumph of the Fifth Avenue Association, which the idea in that period was to move from a residential area to make this the premier location for luxury shopping and fashion. Saks was very much this 1920s icon, and Fifth Avenue Association, shout out to them. They just celebrated their 200th anniversary.

David Furst: Wow.

Valerie Paley: Their effort was to pass a zoning law that would allow the city to restrict trade and industries in certain districts of the city, and Saks is part of it. The way this march of Fifth Avenue, I mean, you're talking about. Your guest was talking about the Altmans. I remember Lord and Taylor as well. Wonderful. Then Sax and then Bergdorf's. All of these windows become certainly a retail draw, but also just another one of these magical traditions.

David Furst: Burned into our memories. Thanks, everybody, for sharing some of your traditions and memories today. Valerie, before we let you go, does New York Historical have some Christmas events coming up that might become traditions?

Valerie Paley: Oh, my gosh, Isn't that. We do have our regular train show. We have a monumental collection of historic trains that we put up every year. They're so popular that actually we're creating a permanent space for them because these historic trains are not just model trains. They're actually, they're from the 19th and early 20th century, and they speak a lot to our collective American past. We try to use these objects to tell larger stories. They, of course, the whole idea of model trains are always associated with the holidays. Children love to come see it in our space. So much so, I, as a curator get a little bit irritated that we keep them up until March. I was like, "Can we please take these things down?"

David Furst: Well, now they're goinb to stick around all the time.

Valerie Paley: Now that'll be around all the time. In our demented children's history museum on our lower level. We're very, very fortunate to have Christmas all the time, but history all the time at the New York Historical.

David Furst: Unfortunately, we're going to have to leave it there. I have so many more questions I want to get to, but thank you. Valerie Paley, former chief historian at New York Historical, now senior vice president and director of its library, as well as the founding director of its Center for Women's History. They are at 77th street in Central park west. There's more information at nyhistory.org. Valerie, thanks again.

Valerie Paley: Thank you, David.

 

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