If you’ve turned on a radio lately, you know that Christmas is coming. But starting this week, your ears won’t be the only organs reminding you of the upcoming holiday.
Tree lighting ceremonies have already started all over the borough, from one MC’d on Thursday by noted non-Christmas celebrant, City Councilman David Yassky (D-Park Slope) to the tree-lighting event hosted the next night by state Sen. Marty Golden (R-Bay Ridge).
And, to keep Christmas from taking over as the one true Festival of Lights, Rabbi Simcha Weinstein of Brooklyn Heights’s Congregation B’nai Avraham will oversee the lighting of Brooklyn’s “official” menorah in front of Borough Hall for eight nights starting Dec. 15.
Borough President Markowitz — who attends so many ceremonial lightings that he practically needs fireproof gloves — will be on hand.
Markowitz’s attendance is no accident. Last year, as reported in The Brooklyn Papers, a battle for menorah supremacy broke out between Weinstein’s “official” menorah, and a Park Slope celebration touted as the borough’s “tallest.”
But this year, the issue has apparently been resolved.
“We’re the official menorah,” said Weinstein (details below). “We’re the menorah that Marty Markowitz uses in official photos.”
The seasonal bulbtacular began on Thursday with the Atlantic Avenue Local Development Corporation’s tree-lighting ceremony at the Belarusian church at Atlantic Avenue and Bond Street.
Golden threw the switch on a series of tree-lightings on Friday in McKinley Park. His next ceremonies are Dec. 4 and 6 (see below).
And in a twist on the traditional holiday lighting ceremonies, the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy is hosting a series of lighting installations by local artists, which will be on view from Dec. 5 until Jan. 7.
City councilmen, parks conservancy groups and fat men in red velvet suits aren’t the only ones who can screw in a light bulb.
The trail of lights continues into Dyker Heights where you can walk into a wattage wonderland, thanks to the Polizzotto and Spata families, two 84th Street clans that became famous throughout the area for setting up elaborate Christmas displays (details below).
Past displays have included 29-foot-high toy soldiers, whole animatronic villages and the entire cast of characters from the “Nutcracker.”
“It’s really something to see,” said Josephine Beckmann, district manager of Community Board 10.
Tree-lighting ceremonies, Dec. 4, 5:30 pm, Lady Moody Square Park (corner of Avenue U and Van Sicklen Street); Dec. 6, 6 pm, Fort Hamilton Memorial Triangle (Fourth Avenue at 95th Street). For information call (718) 238-6044. The “official” menorah lighting, nightly, Dec. 15-22, in the plaza in front of Borough Hall and state Supreme Court. Call (718) 866-6815 for times. Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy light installation, Dec. 5, 6 pm, foot of Main Street. Call (718) 802-0603 for information. Polizzotto and Spata family displays, 84th Street, between 11th and 12th avenues. Do not call. They have enough tourists to deal with.
