New Year Eve 2016

New York City is unquestionably one of the world's top spots for enjoying the holiday season. A visit to the top holiday and Christmas light displays in New York City is a popular seasonal activity.  Everyone wants to see all the new attractions, trees and lights. It wouldn't be the holidays without some traditional lighting displays.  The holiday time in Midtown Manhattan is like no other. New York city  dolls up its storefronts and sparkle its buildings during the magical Holiday season.

 New Year eve is in tomorrow!

In two  days the holiday season  in New York will be over  and all lights will go down.
Happy New Year to everybody  and enjoy the holiday
lights in New York two more days!  
Radio City Hall

Sixth Avenue

Sixth avenue

Tiffany headquarters on Fifth Avenue


Rockefeller Center Christmas tree

Park Avenue

Park Avenue

Bryant Park

Sixth Avenue

Sixth Avenue

Zuccotti park

Tree near exchange

 
 

Metropolitan Museum of Art’s’ Christmas Tree

A  20-foot tall spruce tree, decorated with 18th century Neapolitan angels and cherubs and groups of crèche figures recreating the nativity scene stands in the middle of the  Medieval hall in  the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  The tree is located  in front of the eighteenth-century Spanish choir screen from the Cathedral of Valladolid, Spain.  The  screen was  erected in 1763 and painted and gilded in 1764.

This   tree  is a holiday tradition at the museum, and it’s become a favorite with both New Yorkers and visitors alike.
There are  twenty-two cherubs and fifty-five gracefully suspended angels on the tree .The lights on the tree   are  strategically placed to illuminate their faces.    The lighting in the tree room is intentionally kept soft so that the colors on the aging fabrics of the figurines doesn’t dull. That's why flash when making pictures  is not allowed.


At the base of the tree there are various buildings, villagers, shepherds and the three Magi.  There are 69 sixty-nine figures that represent the three elements of Nativity scenes traditional to eighteenth-century Naples: adoring shepherds and their flocks, the procession of the three Magi, and colorful peasants and townspeople. The crèche figures range from 6 to 20 inches in height and the details are stunning.  Some of the figurines in the Neapolitan Nativity scene date to the 1700s.
Nativity scene is the  oldest and most recognized traditional icon for the Christmas season. St. Francis of Assisi was the first to introduce the use of the three-dimensional nativity scene to Italy in 1220. The tradition reached its cultural peak in 18th century Naples, Italy.


Crèche figures were an obsession in Naples during the 1700s, and families staged spirited get-togethers each year to see who could create the most impressive scenes. When Don Carlos of Bour­bon (the future Charles III of Spain) ruled the port city from 1734 to 1759, he reputedly owned a collection that numbered almost 6,000.
The figures on the tree  come from a collection   by Mrs. Howard, whose father, Edward Hines, was a lumber baron in Chicago. Loretta Hines Howard started collecting the figurines in 1925.

Collaboration with the Met in 1957 marked the first exhibit of Howard’s crèche figures set around a Christmas tree.  Loretta  began donating the figures to the Met in 1964.  Every year since, the Howard family has come to the museum to oversee the installation of the elaborate panorama, featuring the Holy Family surrounded by Magi, shepherds, and townspeople.
Loretta   died in 1982,  and her daughter Linn has continued to acquire new figures. The museum declines to discuss the collection’s value, but a curator, speaking anonymously, says that one figure in good condition, with original costumes, can bring as much as $12,000 to $16,000 at auction.
In keeping with family tradition, Linn Howard's daughter, artist Andréa Selby, joins her mother  in an important guiding role to create the display.
The tree  is on view till January 6, 2016.


Holiday windows in New York: Three years

For retailers in the US, the world’s largest consumer market, 25 percent of annual sales happen during the holiday season. Many stores in New York have Holiday Season Window Displays. Festive windows   influence 24 percent of holiday purchases. Since  Macy's inaugurated the tradition in 1883, the setups grow more dazzling with each passing year.

 For the third year in a row I publish posts about holiday windows in New York. This post is  just a  collection of the links  to  my older posts about holiday windows in 2013 ,2014, 2015  for the readers who missed some of them.  Enjoy!
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Saks Fifth Avenue  :Yeti


 (the Abominable Snowman) A yeti was reportedly captured in Russia in December 2011. Each window depicts a scene from Yeti’s life
Read the post in blog

Bergdorf Goodman : Holidays on Ice

 Designers created a set of five windows , each depicting a different holiday  - 4th of July, Arbor Day, April Fools, Valentine’s Day and Halloween. Read the post in blog

Tiffany: Holiday Nostalgia

 The windows remind everybody about the best things  of the winter season in New York-  white snowy  day, a warm inviting light from window, a small girl with a teddy bear, a cat by the window sill.Read the post in blog

 
Lord & Taylor: Vintage New York

During the Holidays  classic holiday windows  are delightfully romantic and  offer a vintage look at New York City. Read the post in blog
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Barneys: A New York Holiday. In one of the windows a futuristic couple, dressed in Space Age costumes and ride their sleigh that looks more like a Batmobile Another window features a jagged structure covered in thousands of mirrors that glimmer and glisten in a burst of reflections and patterns. In one of the windows  There was a  futuristic floating model of NYC that changes from white to brown to yellow and back to white thanks to a series of light projections. Read the post in blog
 



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Saks 5th Avenue  : An Enchanted Experience 
 Every window is converted into   a scene from the classic fairy tale that all we  know from the early childhood.  You can see  Rumplestiltskin spinning straw into gold in the subway tunnels, Rapunzel using her hair to swing from the Empire State Building, Cinderella arriving at the Saks Fifth Avenue Ball and Snow White being tempted by an evil apple merchant in the heart of Times Square. Read the post in blog


 
Bergdorf Goodman  :The Arts 

This year the store honored the Arts in its display this year, with windows celebrating literature, architecture, theater, painting, dance, sculpture and film Read the post in blog

 
  Tiffany .

The 2014 Tiffany & Co holiday windows center around 1950s and '60s illustrations of New York, and for the first time, the brand has incorporated animated elements. Read the post in blog

 
Lord & Taylor.

Every window is converted into one of the rooms  in the  an enchanted mansion on the eve of the holidays.    Rooms including “The Heritage Gallery” and the “Hall of Wisdom” are filled with surprises to delight and entertain, honoring the building’s 100-year history in decidedly modern fashion. Read the post in blog


 
 
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Bergdorf Goodman: Brilliant Holiday.

  The department store has  holiday windows, featuring a abundance of Swarovski crystals — more than seven million of them, to be specific — in honor of the Austrian brand's 120th anniversary.  Read the post in blog

 
Saks 5th Avenue

 Saks filled the holiday windows with wintery version  of some of the world’s greatest natural and man-made wonders—an icy Coliseum, a snowy Great Wall of China, a frozen Great Barrier Reef. Read the post in blog


 
Tiffany :

"This year we're celebrating Tiffany's heritage of luxury in a winter wonderland, as depicted in miniature theatres of the 19th century," Richard Moore, vice president of creative visual merchandising, said Read the post in blog


 
Lord & Taylor.

The theme of this year's window decorations is  "A Few of Our Favorite Things".   Read the post in blog
 
 
 
 
 
 
Barneys New York unveiled winter wonderland named “Chillin’ Out” in the middle of November. Artist Dale Chihuly compiled 700 hand-blown glass icicles into crystalline sculptures, which hang from the windows for the “Winter Brilliance” installation.
 


Barneys New York, Winter Brilliance

Barneys New York unveiled winter wonderland named “Chillin’ Out” in the middle of November. Artist Dale Chihuly compiled 700 hand-blown glass icicles into crystalline sculptures, which hang from the windows for the “Winter Brilliance” installation.

Dale Chihuly is a widely collected glass sculptor whose work has been installed in venues as varied as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. You may already be familiar with Dale Chihuly’s work if you’ve seen one of his masterful art glass sculptures in one of the 250 museums globally that feature his work. 

Dale Chihuly in Great Britain
 

I did not know this name before 2003 when I saw his works in Grounds of Sculptures park in New Jersey. There are not so many works installed in New York City- the latest the chandelier in Mandarin Oriental near Columbus circle.


Bellagio, Las Vegas by Dale Chihuly
Twenty years ago the artist used the icicle-shaped element when he created “Icicle Creek Chandelier,” which is a permanent installation two hours outside of Chilhuly’s home base in Seattle. Chihuly revisits this shape and form throughout “Winter Brilliance.” A modern adaptation of a score by Claude Debussy, Chihuly’s favorite composer, pairs with choreographed lighting effects by Christie Three Sixty, which gives a 3-D digital mapping effect.


“It’s the first time I’ve done holiday windows,” Dale Chihuly said of his contribution of five glass sculptures, “put together, and then lit up with fancy lighting that allows them to change color,” the Seattle-based glass artist said, adding, “plus, there’s water on the bottom".

Two other windows - the Ice Castles and Ice Carvers - have been turned into 35-foot ice lockers and kept at minus-2 degrees.
You can find the description of the process of the Ice Castle creating   on the windows:

Ice Farmer: An individual who grows, harvests and creates ice castles
Harvesting:  growing icicles in tubing to create  a scaffolding. Each icicle forms in 2-4 hours at 15 F
Fusing Bonding each harvest icicle together with a snow and ice slush.
Spraying : Activating the  scaffolding by sprinkling water and allowing gravity to create natural ice formations. This ice castle was sprayed 10 hours per day for 12 lays


The ice carvers will perform daily during the coming weeks, transforming 20-by-30-inch blocks of ice into holiday sculptures. Catch them at work now through December 31.

Lord & Taylor 2015 holiday windows

According to  a news release from the store, 500,000 people walk by the 101-year-old building between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  “Our Holiday windows are very important here at Lord & Taylor. We were the first retailer to present animated holiday windows and we’ve been doing so since 1937, so it’s part of our heritage and something we love sharing with the city. Our wish is to put a smile on the face of all the viewers and escape the chaos of a hectic day in NYC” – said  Lord&Taylor.

The holiday windows in Lord&Taylor are far more complicated than a few mannequins in Santa suits; they're more like festive pieces of art.
 Built off site, the windows were   then installed in the store's basement and elevated to street level using a hydraulic system created specifically for the displays.  The theme of this year's window decorations is  "A Few of Our Favorite Things".  

The sparkly white cuckoo clock is of five windows that Lord and Taylor unveils every December. Everything on the clock glitters. Squirrels run up the sides, while other creatures nestle into little nooks in the clock. At midnight, an animation of colorful fireworks explode in the background.


A "holiday countdown"  window   holds a mansion with 24 windows meant to count down the days of December until Christmas. Each window of the house opens up to show an "iconic New York City holiday image," per the press release.
 The next window is devoted to a large Victorian gingerbread house, carried on a pedestal by an Army of gingerbread men. The house is elaborately decorated with icing. There's about 320 gingerbread men  there made out of foam.
 This year, part of the building has been under construction, and scaffolding hid Lord and Taylor's famous windows from the street.  Designers covered  all the scaffolding entirely in garland and Christmas lights converting it    into   a winter wonderland.   “The windows are our gift to New York City,” said Lord & Taylor president Liz Rodbell.






Tiffany holiday windows 2015

During the holiday season, the sidewalk outside of Tiffany  is as crowded as the store itself, with tourists and residents alike flocking to New York City’s Fifth Avenue to see the display in the merchant’s windows. The windows for the holidays from Tiffany's   are always so classic. They know how to do it right, and this year was no exception!

"This year we're celebrating Tiffany's heritage of luxury in a winter wonderland, as depicted in miniature theatres of the 19th century," Richard Moore, vice president of creative visual merchandising, said in a statement.
Behind the glass reveals a heritage of luxury amid wintry scenes: An ornate proscenium arch frames a fairy tale landscape in a palette of Tiffany Blue and winter white. A palace covered in snow, pavilions and grand staircases sparkle with jewels; and a sleigh worthy of a queen glides deep into the forest, where a great white stag reigns, surrounded by fir trees laden with treasures.