Forget the mafia — NYC’s real turf battles are between cutthroat Christmas tree sellers
NY Post
New York City’s Christmas tree sales aren’t a holly-jolly business.
The most statuesque trees worthy of a Manhattan pied-à-terre or Brooklyn brownstone don’t come cheap — or without behind-the-scenes drama that has been kept from New Yorkers, until now.
The Christmas tree sellers that pop up on the streets of NYC in the run-up to the big day have often gone more than $400,000 into debt to buy their supplies.
Then there’s the hush-hush aspect of securing the best trees themselves, often sourced from farms in states including Oregon, Michigan, North Carolina and Tennessee. The exact locations, trade secrets that each peddler is very tight-lipped about.
But most cutthroat of all is the limited time period over which this plays out, with New York City tree sellers duking it out for the biggest profits in a highly competitive four-week window — just before Thanksgiving through the middle of December accounting for their busiest time.
To make matters even more challenging, uncontrollable factors come into play — including bad weather, or big-box stores like Home Depot dropping an abundance of Christmas trees — with pressure mounting to get customers during that small window.
