Off to Valhalla.

Not a celeb, historically important or, a "high vis" person, but
an interesting read on someone who did a pretty good job over
the years. And, 48 is too short a run for anyone, imo.
BR,mD

By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: March 17, 2007

Marc Torsilieri, who looked like a ginger-bearded lumberjack and played the part in splendid fashion by annually felling the Christmas tree for Rockefeller Center, died on March 12 in Somerville, N.J. He was 48, a little over half the age of most of the Norway spruces he helped find, transport, decorate and remove.

Marc Torsilieri in November 2003, helping to lower the 550-pound star onto that year’s Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.




The cause was pancreatic cancer, said his wife, Susan.
Mr. Torsilieri belonged to a clan of experts in moving big trees, when not attending to other aspects of their landscape business in Gladstone, N.J.

For almost a generation, they teamed up with Rockefeller Center experts to conduct what may be the world’s most distinctive arboreal talent search.

The result of the annual search is a statuesque evergreen, usually exceeding 80 feet in height, weighing around eight tons and spreading 40 or more feet wide when fluffed out. Each year’s tree is festooned with 30,000 lights on five miles of wire, with a star on top that is 9.5 feet in diameter and weighs 550 pounds.

The tree rises majestically over the golden statue of Prometheus, happy ice skaters and more than 10 million visitors over the holiday season.

The tradition began humbly in 1931 when construction workers put up a small tree; it gained steam in 1933 when formal tree-lighting began, then grew inexorably into today’s televised extravaganza.

Mr. Torsilieri and his brothers Guy and Dean ran the landscaping firm, Torsilieri Inc., that their father, Carl, began in 1968. They developed a reputation for sensitivity in moving trees and were approached by Rockefeller Center to handle its annual centerpiece, almost always a Norway spruce because of the brisk growth of that species.

“They move 85-foot trees like they’re delicate little china teapots,” David Murbach, the center’s chief gardener, said in an interview with The New York Times in 1993.

Marc Torsilieri stood 5-foot-11 and weighed 240 pounds, but the 1993 article said he could “climb to the top of a giant Norway spruce with the grace of a gymnast to tie up every tender little branch that would otherwise be snapped off during the trip to Manhattan.”
Marc Torsilieri worked side by side with his 15 or more laborers. They delicately folded the branches inward so they would not break during the ride. The upper branches were flexible enough, but hingelike devices had to be made for the lower branches to make them bendable.
They then used a specially constructed crane to place the tree in a tractor-trailer, originally designed to carry bridge girders. Its length telescopes to 100 feet, and it is used only once a year, for the big tree. A police escort accompanies it to Manhattan.

But finding a tree comes first. Strangers’ tips are many, but seldom work out.

The search begins in late fall when evergreens stand out like jewels among bare deciduous trees. Then, Mr. Torsilieri told The Times, “I’ll mark which areas have lots of trees, and then we’ll go back and comb them with a car.”

After identifying a potential prize, they had to find the owner, a process involving knocking on the door, then leaving a card if necessary, and finally, sending a nice letter with a self-addressed envelope.
Incentives for the owner include a small payment, some free landscaping (often including a new seedling) and a chance to get rid of an aged tree that has outgrown the yard. Specimens are usually found in the Northeast, but have come from as far away as Ohio and Canada.
Expectations have grown. “When we first started doing this, the trees were 60-footers,” Mr. Torsilieri said in an interview with The Los Angeles Times in 1996. “They just kind of kept creeping up in size. I’m not quite sure how it got that way.”

Marc Frank Torsilieri was born in Morristown, N.J., on July 28, 1958, and graduated from Delhi College of Technology in 1978 with a degree in horticulture. He lived in Three Bridges, N.J., and moonlighted as a mover of large sculptures for museums.

In addition to his wife, the former Susan Fehrenback, Mr. Torsilieri is survived by two daughters, Liza and Phoebe; a son, Samuel; his parents, Carl and Lois; a sister, Carla J. D’Agostino of Marin County, Calif.; and his brothers, Guy, of White House Station, N.J., and Dean, of East Amwell, N.J.

He liked telling Christmas tree stories, including one about a woman who rushed out in tears after hers was cut down. They turned out to be tears of joy: she had long thought her bathroom was hopelessly infected by mold, but it turned out that its sickly green color was from the tree’s shadow.

Once, with television cameras waiting in Rockefeller Center, the tractor-trailer got stuck in the mud in a Pennsylvania field, and the tree was a day late.
“That year is forever etched in my mind: 1985,” Mr. Torsilieri said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/17/ob...=1&oref=slogin