After a four-month-long campaign, Chicagoans have weighed in for the first time on an issue that — for the sentimental, at least — outshines who gets to be the next governor, U.S. senator or mayor: The Daley Plaza Christmas tree.
The winner, after 5,182 votes were cast, is a 70-foot blue spruce on property in McHenry County owned by the Colomer family.
With 2,678 votes, the 80- to 90-year-old tree beat out the other candidates in a city-sponsored contest that began in July. The second-place tree received about 1,300 votes. About 60 other entrants were shorter than the required 55 feet.
In keeping with contest rules, John Colomer nominated the tree with a story about how generations of children at Montini Catholic Middle School have watched the tree grow across from their school.
“It would be a great experience for the schoolchildren to see the removal of the tree from the site and to know its fate would be to site in a place of prominence,” Colomer wrote.
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In one way or another, though, the tree’s days were numbered.
Its current home, on the northeast corner of Richmond Road and Pearl Street in downtown McHenry, is scheduled for eventual commercial development.
The tree will be cut down Nov. 4 and delivered to Daley Plaza the next day. Tree-lighting festivities will start at 4:30 p.m. Nov. 24. Mayor Richard Daley and members of the Colomer family will flip a switch to light the tree at 5 p.m.