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New York’s holiday lights are getting an early start this year. Weeks before the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree flips the switch, a 3,300-pound crystal snowflake will illuminate one of Manhattan’s busiest intersections—and anyone can watch it happen for free.
The Fifth Avenue Snowflake illumination ceremony will take place on Wednesday, November 18, at 5pm, officially welcoming the holiday season to Fifth Avenue. The outdoor event will center on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, where the enormous snowflake will light up above the famous shopping corridor. The 30-foot spectacle has more than 16,500 individual crystal prisms and weighs about as much as a small elephant. Suspended above the avenue, it has become one of Midtown’s most recognizable holiday decorations.
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The ceremony is hosted by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, the Fifth Avenue Snowflake for Humanity Foundation and the Fifth Avenue Association. The snowflake will shine in honor of St. Jude and its work supporting children and families facing pediatric cancer and other life-threatening illnesses. Families receiving care from the hospital are never billed for treatment, travel, housing or food. Two St. Jude families will participate in this year’s program: Seven-year-old childhood cancer survivor Imani and her family from Long Island, and 17-year-old Faith and her family from Oklahoma.
Organizers have yet to announce the ceremony’s host, entertainment lineup and exact viewing location, though more details are expected in the coming weeks. Updates will be shared through the Fifth Avenue Snowflake’s social-media channels.
The November lighting serves as an unofficial starting bell for the city’s most aggressively festive stretch of the year: it also gives New Yorkers a reason to visit Fifth Avenue before December crowds descend upon the department-store windows, Rockefeller Center and seemingly every square inch of Midtown. The seasonal celebrations will continue on Thursday, December 3, when St. Jude hosts its inaugural Snowflake Ball at The Plaza Hotel.
For now, mark November 18 on your calendar, bundle up and prepare to watch more than 16,000 crystals turn Fifth Avenue into one very glamorous snow globe.