Many streets in Midtown are already closed for Wednesday’s Rockefeller tree lighting

It cannot be overlooked: Christmas time has arrived in New York. And to make it official, the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting will bring merriment, tourists and road closures this week.

The tree lighting will take place on Wednesday evening, but according to the city’s Department of Transportation, several streets will be closed on Monday and Tuesday for preparations:

• 46.–52. Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues
• Rockefeller Plaza between 48th and 51st Streets
• Fifth and Sixth Avenues between 46th and 52nd Streets

Further road closures are planned for the major event on Wednesday:

• Madison Avenue between 42nd and 57th Streets
• Fifth and Sixth Avenues between 42nd and 57th Streets.

The closures coincide with some of this season’s official “congestion alert days,” when transportation officials expect traffic to be the worst of the year. This month there are gridlock warnings in the city on December 3rd and 6th, December 10th and 13th and December 17th and 19th.

Further traffic warnings and information from the ministry can be found here.

The Rockefeller Center tree will be lit during the two-hour “Christmas at Rockefeller Center,” beginning Wednesday at 8 p.m. on NBC and Peacock.

This year’s tree, a 74-foot-tall Norway spruce, comes from the Albert family estate in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It’s the first time since 1959 that the Rockefeller Center tree has come from the Bay State.

The tree weighs about 11 tons and is 43 feet in diameter. It remains visible until mid-January and is illuminated from 5 a.m. to midnight most days, but for 24 hours on Christmas Eve.

According to the Rockefeller Center, after the season ends, the tree will be processed into lumber for the charity group Habitat for Humanity.