This Year's Daley Plaza Christmas Tree Cut Down In Western Springs
WESTERN SPRINGS, Ill. (CBS) -- Chicago's Christmas tree was cut down this morning in spectacular fashion Thursday morning from outside a home in Western Springs.
As WBBM Newsradio's Bernie Tafoya reports, less than two minutes after a chainsaw started chewing into the 55-foot tall Colorado spruce outside the Spangler family home, it was cut.
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But the tree remained standing, dangling by a crane that held it up and eventually picked it up and over two 50-foot trees that stand on the Spanglers' parkway.
Klaudia Spangler had tears in her eyes when the final cut was made.
"Now I just can't wait to see it all lit up. That'll make it all worthwhile," she said. "But it's a little sad."
Crews will deliver the tree to Daley Plaza sometime after 7 p.m. Friday. It will then be decorated with lights and ornaments before a lighting ceremony on Nov. 23.
The Spanglers were a runner-up in last year's Christmas tree contest, so they decided to enter again.
Only since 2009 has a single tree been used in Daley Plaza. In years before that going back more than half a century, the city erected an 85-foot conical tree composed of scores of smaller trees. The tree the year before last was made up of 113 smaller trees.
But a 2008 report by CBS 2 Investigator Pam Zekman reported showed the city paid more than $300,000 for city workers to build the frame, decorate the tree, and dismantle it over the course of six weeks.
Following Zekman's report, the city decided to scrap the compound tree for a single one.
