NEW YORK —

The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was hoisted aloft at its new home in Manhattan on Saturday, marking the start of New York City's holiday season.

This year's tree is a 75-foot-tall Norway spruce from the upstate town of East Greenbush, a suburb of Albany. After being cut down this week, it made the roughly 150-mile journey south on a flatbed truck, drawing curious onlookers along the way.

The crowds were much bigger at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where workers used cranes to hoist the 11-ton tree into position overlooking the iconic skating rink. People gathered with coffee cups and phones as crews secured the spruce and began the careful process of stabilizing it.

The tree will soon be decorated with more than 50,000 multicolored, energy-efficient LED lights and crowned with

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