The Brooklyn Heights Promenade sits atop the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and overlooks Brooklyn Bridge Park below, with a clear view over the East River to the Manhattan Skyline, as you can see in my article on an unexpected September 2024 fireworks show seen from the Promenade. The Promenade is about one-third of a mile long and has multiple entrances. For some time now, a large Christmas Tree has been erected annually at the Montague Street entrance to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. I always liked the tree, but I think I took it for granted – evinced by the fact that I have documented in these pages Christmas trees in Metro Tech and Grand Army Plaza, not to mention a live perennial Christmas Tree in Carroll Gardens, but not previously the one at the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. (I did however once write about a dead Christmas Tree in Brooklyn Heights about one block away from where the Promenade Tree goes up every year.) I now correct this four-Christmas New Leaf Journal oversight with a photo I took of the Promenade Christmas Tree on December 17, 2024:
They did a nice job this year. In addition to the tall, hardy looking tree, we also have a mailbox, presumably for letters to Santa Claus if the “NORTH POLE” is any indication, and a Menorah contributed by the Chabad of Brooklyn Heights, which is situated a few minutes away on Remsen Street. It occurred to me that while the sign on the Menorah says clearly who was responsible for placing it at the Montague entrance to the Promenade, I was not sure who was responsible for the tree. Some research was in order.
According to an article on Brooklyn Heights Parents, the Christmas Tree, which is apparently officially called a holiday tree, comes from the Brooklyn Heights Garden Club. The article noted that there was a tree lighting ceremony on December 18 and that “[t]he tree will be lit at 5:30pm on Wednesday, December 18…” I did a double take when I read the date since I took the photo on December 17, 2024, but I suppose the ceremony was not the first lighting of the tree.
(Note: I learned additionally that the Grand Army Plaza Christmas Tree and nativity scene which I photographed and included with my December 2021 review article is maintained by the Diocese of Brooklyn.)
I will conclude by noting that one of the Christmas Trees referenced in the Heights Parents article – the “Seaport Holiday Tree” across the East River in Manhattan – is actually easily visible from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, although it did not occur to me to take a photograph on the same day I captured the Promenade Christmas Tree.
