[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the New Yorkers, a podcast by New York City Cop. I am your host, Kelly Kopp, published photographer, New York City tour business owner, real estate content creator, podcaster, and above all else, a New Yorker.
Ladies and gentlemen, the next Brooklyn found train in Mount Biden.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: Stand clear of the closing doors, please.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: With me today, I have CEO Dan Castorella. He is the leader of American Christmas. His company provides Christmas decorations for Radio City Music Hall, Saks Fifth Avenue, as well as storefronts and venues all across the United States. But above all else, Dan is a New Yorker. Hey, Dan. Welcome to the show. How are you doing today, my friend?
[00:01:14] Speaker B: I'm good. How are you doing? Thanks for having me.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: What'd you say?
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Thanks for having me.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: Oh, thanks for coming in. It's an honor, Buddy. I know you're super busy with all the Christmas decorations. I mean, you are the man of New York City when it comes to decorations and everything. So I know you're crazy busy. So thanks for joining us because that means a lot to me, buddy.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: Thanks for having me. Yeah. I'm going on day 94.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: I think it is day 94, and.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: We have four days left.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: Geez. And then what do you do after these four days?
[00:01:46] Speaker B: We reset for a little bit and we plan for takedown.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: Do you have any time off? I mean, I'll get more into this later, but do you get time off or you take a break?
[00:01:56] Speaker B: Not really.
Will take a few days right before Christmas, but, you know, we're still servicing. We're working with our clients at that point, so not really, but it does slow down right before Christmas.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Nice. Nice.
For people who may not know the name American Christmas, but definitely know the magic you create. How do you describe what the company does and what is American Christmas as well?
[00:02:20] Speaker B: Yep. Yeah.
[00:02:21] Speaker C: So.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Most people know our work, but they don't know who does it.
So American Christmas has been around for over 50 years.
We're commercial holiday designers, installers, and project managers. We decorate some of the most iconic locations in New York City. You had mentioned Radio City and Saks Fifth Avenue. But we work with a lot of the major real estate companies like Tishman Spire, Vernado Realty Trust, and flagship retailers like Macy's and Bloomingdale's and Cartier.
Just name a few. But what we're doing is we're coming in and we're designing these displays, engineering them, maintaining them year over year, and then.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: As well as evolving them for our clients when they want new renditions of what we've Done.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: And how did you get into this? Like, where did this begin? First, were you in your life with American Christmas?
[00:03:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I was actually in college and I had a family friend who did the banking for the company.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: And college was not my strong place in life.
I was failing out and I had my professor at the time say, you're working for this Christmas company. It seems like that's all you care about.
You should go work for them and drop out of school because you're taking a spot from someone who should be here.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: Wow. So you're already working for them.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: And doing what at this time?
[00:03:52] Speaker B: I was just doing installations.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: Right.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: Seasonally.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: You just, just applied and got the job again?
[00:03:59] Speaker B: I had a family friend.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: Oh, that's right. Yeah.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: Did the banking and had got me a job as I was in between schools and. Yeah, so I was doing that and I had a lot of passion for it.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: Right.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: And my professor who ran the art School at St. John's was basically like, you know what? You should go work for that company. That company is going to give you more than school can give you here.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: And boy, were they right.
[00:04:24] Speaker B: Yeah, it worked out well for me.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, had, had, you know, then where you'd be today, you wouldn't probably believe it. Yeah, right?
[00:04:32] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, prior to going to college, I used to decorate homes in high school.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: Oh, really?
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Yes.
So my love for Christmas started at a very young age. I was decorating houses, my own house, with my grandfather and my dad. So that's kind of how I got into it.
It's always been something that made me happy.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: And how old were you when you helped starting decorating?
[00:04:58] Speaker B: I was probably like seven or eight.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: That's amazing.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: So.
And I did it through high school just decorating homes. I would cut class during this time of year to decorate homes.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: That's pretty amazing. And where was this?
[00:05:11] Speaker B: In Westchester.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: Westchester. So you grew up in Westchester?
[00:05:14] Speaker B: And from there, you know, I went to college and then fell into American Christmas, luckily.
And it's been a good rock for me.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: So tell us a little about you, Dan.
So you were born where and.
And then tell us about your family.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: Yeah. So I'm from Westchester, New York, just born in Port. Yep, just above Manhattan. Born in Portchester.
[00:05:40] Speaker B: And I live in Harrison, New York now.
About a 30 minute train ride to the city.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: Right. And you take the Metro north or.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: Yes, yep, yep.
And I have, I.
Tara, my wife Tara and two kids at home.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: And yeah, we have a, we have a. We have a good Comfortable little life.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: And so with what your job is decorated New York, the entirety basically of New York City.
I assume they don't see you at Christmas time.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Yeah, it definitely comes and goes.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: I become the father that in n out this time of year.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: And that goes for actually a lot of my staff too.
We go on this once the season comes really end of September until basically January.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: I was going to ask you that.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: Me and my staff, you kind of give up a lot of personal time.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: And it's our time to perform for our client.
So what we do is, I like to say we kind of operate like accountants.
You have this 10, 8 to 10 week period where you're very busy, it's overwhelming and you have to perform all of your work.
And then come the middle of January, I like to say the pendulum swings the other way and you get more life in your get more life balance and be with your family. More work can take the backseat for a little while.
So our years Kaisei broken up into three, you know, a third, you know, the first half it's all about, you know, take, take, do what you have to do with your family. The next third it's 50, 50 and then the last third, it's work.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: You know, you are dealing with some of the most important, well known clients in the world here in New York City.
How is that stress, is that stressful for you?
[00:07:37] Speaker B: It is stressful and we continue to grow with those clients.
[00:07:43] Speaker B: I think the hardest part of our business is that it's seasonal.
So trying to train new employees, trying to even work with our clients, it's sometimes difficult because everything works against seasonal businesses.
So we still have to operate for 12 months a year. But in theory we collect our revenue over 10 weeks.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: Right. That's incredible.
So start from January to December. What's, how's that go for you?
[00:08:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll actually start today. We are wrapping up our installation season now. We have our first meetings for 2026 in a week. The first proposals for 2026 will go out right before Christmas.
Then we'll go into our takedown season. Yeah, that ends the end of February eventually.
And at that point we really go into high gear now for next year. And the selling season starts again in December and goes through the following December.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: Sale could take 12 months or it could take 12 days.
[00:08:49] Speaker A: So you're just constantly just thinking about what's for next year, thinking what I need to do today, what I need to do next year.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: Yes. I mean we started buying for next Christmas and September of this year.
[00:09:02] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: So we are about to start development for new product for 2027. We're about eight weeks out from starting 2027 product development.
So it. Everything is, you know, minimum 12 months in advance in our world.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: Wow.
Well, real quick, I want you to take us behind the scenes. What does it actually take to. To create a major NYC holiday installation from the, from concept to the. The finished product?
[00:09:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say it's a team of about five people working on something for anywhere from three to eight months is probably the average timeframe to get something developed on a large scale.
And there's a project management or a graphic designer, a designer, an account manager and a production supervisor all working together to deliver one of these large scale projects from our team.
And.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: Starts with a site visit that evolves into doing artwork and then from there proposal and then it. The ball kind of gets rolling at that point.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: Is there different teams for each project or is it just. Is it collectively, everyone working together?
[00:10:25] Speaker B: Collectively, everyone working together. But we have different specialties for different people. We have one group that just focuses on office buildings. We have another group that just focuses on retail.
Wow.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: And how did you become the head of the business? Yeah, yeah, we American All American Christmas.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Yeah, we start. I started working at American Christmas in 2003 and at that point.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: I was just in production and doing installs and I worked my way up from there. I went into sales and then I went into management, so on. But in 2017 we bought the company and we at that point decided we bought the company. And my partner In Austria has 40 of these Christmas companies around the world.
So American Christmas was the American entity to MK Illumination at that point.
And that's how I came into this role. I was part of the merger that happened in 2017.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: Wow, that's amazing, Dan. That's impressive. You know, because, you know, my, my podcast is all about people's passion for New York and what they do. And this is what you are, you know, the passion for what you do, passion for New York.
And just goes to show when you have a passion, you can do anything. Yeah, you know, I agree.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: And I actually never recognized the passion until this year. This was one of our more difficult seasons for a lot of reasons.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: What's up?
[00:12:12] Speaker B: Just.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Anything from buying and having to deal with tariffs.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: Right. That had to be difficult. That has to be difficult.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: Very difficult. The insurance requirements. Working in New York City becomes more difficult year over year. It was just when you bring it all together, it was a difficult year this year.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: But it was probably two weeks ago. I'm driving through the city and it again, having one of those days, and I realized that I get so upset when stuff doesn't go right because I care so much. Like what we do in New York, millions. I mean, you know this better than anyone. Millions of people come here every Christmas to see the decorations.
And I think me. But more importantly, most of my team holds that on their shoulders and takes a lot of pride in that.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: Right. Well, definitely. I mean, you can feel it with your entire team.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I think they really do wear that on their shoulders and carry that.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: Pride, you know, but also, it also thinks it comes, you know, also from their leader per se, which is you. And, you know, the way you are and the way your passion exudes from you and the way you treat people, too. You're a very nice person as one. I think that has a lot to do with it, too.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: You're a good guy.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: I. I appreciate that. I don't know if everyone feels that way, but.
But yeah, it gets stressful at times, but I like to. I. Again, it's like we. We have. We come from this seasonal world of. You get these peak highs and lows.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: And right now, we're in the high. And you know what? We're going to come down off that roller coaster peak at some point, and the pendulum's gonna go the other way and it's gonna be.
Everything's gonna go into the favor of, you know what? Let's take care of ourselves.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: Right. Right.
Well, you know, Dan, what part of your job gives you the greatest satisfaction?
[00:14:09] Speaker B: Walking through the city and watching people see all the decoration.
I tell. That's the one thing I tell every new employee.
You won't understand what we do until you walk through the city in December and see people enjoying our work.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: I completely understand that. I can see that, too.
So American Christmas.
I've been to and up in Westchester, Correct?
[00:14:37] Speaker B: Yes. Mount Vernon.
[00:14:37] Speaker A: Mount Vernon. And it's incredible. I mean, it's this huge. How many square feet warehouse?
[00:14:43] Speaker B: 110,000 square feet.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: And you have Holiday Lane there, too, right?
[00:14:49] Speaker B: We don't have Holiday Lane. We have. It's just a retail store now.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: What is Holiday Lane?
[00:14:54] Speaker B: So Holiday Lane was a charity event that I ran the past few years.
[00:15:01] Speaker B: Where we've raised over 200 grand walking through our showroom. Essentially, what we've done is we had to evolve it now that we're past covet and our clients were coming to see us more. So we turned it more into A retail shop. And I have Santa Claus on the weekends now.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: And that's where I've been.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: That's where you've been. And I donate proceeds from sales to charity. And we asked for donations for a picture with Santa, so we're hoping to do another 30 to $50,000 a year.
[00:15:31] Speaker A: So all proceeds go to charity from Santa Claus?
[00:15:34] Speaker B: Yes. Wow.
[00:15:35] Speaker A: That's incredible.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: What a great thing to do for the community. Yeah.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: We again, three small charity. Three small organizations around Mount Vernon that all support youth in the neighborhood. We've donated over $240,000 in three years.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: God, that's insane. What a great thing to do. That's impressive. That's impressive. Well, you know, I loved walking through the.
The warehouse with you, with Marco. Yep. It's fascinating. It's huge. And everything that I saw. Can I say what I saw? Yeah. Because now everything's out.
[00:16:09] Speaker B: Everything's out. Almost everything.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, what I did see, you know, I'll say it. I saw.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: The Burberry bow. Right. Or the wrapping on that goes. That went on Bloomingdale.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: That was. It was huge in that.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Those are about 17ft tall.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: That was incredible to see. And just, you know, and it was really. I like the energy in the warehouse. Everybody was really happy and upbeat and just. I mean, it's. Everybody was loving what they were doing. You could feel it.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: I hope you still have that energy at this point. But, yeah, everyone's a little bit tired.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: Yeah, they are tired. They are tired.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: But no, Bert, you saw Burberry. I think you saw parts of Cartier, too.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: I. You saw the heralding angels from Rockefeller Center.
[00:16:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: So.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: So cool to see these iconic decorations that you do for New York City. I think that's fascinating. Do you do the candy canes?
[00:17:03] Speaker B: We do do the Candy Canes at 1271. And then also, which are new this year.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: We do do the Candy Canes at 1271.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: I'm across from Radio City, too.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: Radio City.
And then we also do the Candy Canes at 9 West 57th Street.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: Oh, I love those, too.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: Yeah, those are the. I mean, those are very old. There's a bunch of New York displays that we do that are over 20 years old that have become, like, staples, and it becomes, like, a fixture to the building every Christmas.
[00:17:33] Speaker A: So let's talk about the ones that we all know. The candy canes again, across the Radio City Music Hall.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: The Candy Canes at 57th and 5th, per se. Right there at the Nine West Building.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: So the Saks Fifth Avenue lights. The light show.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: The light show is back this year.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: That's massive. I wanna, I wanna hear more about this. Yeah. And then Macy's right there. Channel Garden with the angels and the trumpets, right?
[00:17:58] Speaker B: Yes, that, that Tishman Rockefeller Center.
[00:18:01] Speaker A: Yep. Do you do.
Next to Bloomingdale's? Do you do the Christmas tree there?
[00:18:07] Speaker B: We do at Bloomberg, at Blueberg.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: Love that Christmas tree.
Do you do this? The, the Christmas tree off of 6th Avenue? That's down in the. Kind of down a little maybe not.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: The sunken Plaza. Yeah, the Sunken Plaza at 1221. That is.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: You do that as well.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: That you can walk through and take.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: Love it. That's a bit newer to the last few years, I feel, yet.
[00:18:28] Speaker B: Four years.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: And what else? What am I missing?
[00:18:31] Speaker B: We do the tree at Fox News. We do the nutcrackers at 1285 Avenue. The Americas.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: That's incredible.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: Our, our corridor is like 5th and 6th Avenue, right from like 42nd street to the park. That's our specialty.
That's like the hot spot.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: But yeah, I would say, you know, there's much more that we do, but those are the ones that are kind of like in your face.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: Doing the tours of Christmas decorations in New York.
[00:19:01] Speaker A: I'm glad you said that. Right, just right there, that there's more that you do. What else do you do?
[00:19:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean it could be a small little hotel, boutique hotel or building lobby that, you know, has five or six tenants, no clients. Too big or too small for us.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Really?
[00:19:21] Speaker B: Yeah, we, we definitely cover all of Manhattan. We're in all five boroughs actually.
[00:19:29] Speaker B: But where we do 900 installs over, you know, eight weeks.
[00:19:34] Speaker A: Wow. Can you. What in other boroughs? Can you mention some other boroughs that you.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: Yeah, we're in Queens. We're in the Bronx.
We are in Brooklyn. We're in that island with Macy's. We're doing a lot of their decorations around the city.
[00:19:50] Speaker A: Oh, wow. I didn't know that.
[00:19:51] Speaker B: So in their, in their offshoot locations.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: That's incredible.
So, Dan, how many employees are at American Christmas?
[00:20:00] Speaker B: So we have about 85 full time employees at American Christmas working all year long.
Most are in New York, but we do have a few scattered around the country.
And what we seasonally will bloom up to about 390 employees.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: On top of that, we will have about another 100 subcontractors from other organizations working for us during our season.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: That's incredible.
From what I understand too, since you've, Dan. Taken over the company. Correct. You have tripled revenue since joining MK Illumination.
[00:20:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Since 2017 we've tripled the revenue.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: That's insane. And that's because of you.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: Yeah. The team and I. Yeah, yeah.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: But I mean it's. I think it's.
[00:20:49] Speaker B: But we've had this goal of.
I, I also have to say it. Some of it's just economics too. We are, our clients are getting bigger and we're doing more with our current clients and our VIP client. So we've been. Our goal is to keep a client forever. We wanna own, manage and deliver Christmas for our clients. So when they think about it, they just think about us. We want them to be hands off as much as possible.
We want them, we like to say just write us a check a few times a year. Let us deal with everything.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: Right.
Wow. So Dan, you don't just deal with New York City only as we talked about your worldwide as well. Nationwide, I should say mostly. Tell us about other areas in the country that you are in charge of as well.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: Yeah. So we do have offices around the world. I handle America.
But we have 40 offices scattered around the world.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: Right.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: But for us, you know, in the American market, we, we operate and are putting decorations in about 35 states this year.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: We are strong in Beverly Hills, in San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, Tampa, Miami.
[00:22:10] Speaker A: Travel to all these places.
[00:22:11] Speaker B: We do, we have every job we do, no matter where it is in the country. We'll have a full time employee of ours on it and then with a lot of them will hire, hire local teams who have the local expertise to do that work.
[00:22:25] Speaker A: Why did I interrupt it? I'm sorry, where else is it in the country? I'm so sorry.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Florida. But we also are, we have another operational office in Washington D.C. that's our second biggest market actually.
And it's just a miniature version of what we do in New York City.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: Really? Yep. So that you do the candy canes and all that stuff there?
[00:22:47] Speaker B: Yeah, we're doing about 150 jobs in the metro Washington D.C. area.
[00:22:53] Speaker A: I'm interested since I'm from Florida too. I live there a lot of my life. Half my life here, half my life there. Is there, is there one in Tampa? I saw.
[00:23:01] Speaker B: Yeah, we, we're actually going to close the warehouse in Tampa for business reasons. I move everything to our distribution center in Memphis. Just make sense for us to do that.
[00:23:12] Speaker A: Right.
[00:23:12] Speaker B: But Tampa and Miami in particular are very good markets.
[00:23:16] Speaker A: I was going to say that like in Florida the cities are Tampa and Miami.
[00:23:19] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:23:20] Speaker A: How about Orlando? Does you do Orlando?
[00:23:21] Speaker B: We don't do Orlando.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: That's where I was. That's where I live.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: Yeah, we don't do anything in Orlando. It's mostly Tampa and Miami for us. But the fun thing about Florida is people in Florida love Christmas. Florida is one of the largest markets in America for Christmas.
The most artificial flock Christmas trees are sold in Florida year over year.
[00:23:46] Speaker A: Really? And what are artificial flock Christmas trees?
[00:23:48] Speaker B: They look like they're snow covered.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: Oh, that's what I thought. Okay.
[00:23:52] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's like we, we, we. Our E Comm platform, Christmas in America dot com. I would say one out of four sales go to Florida.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: Really?
[00:24:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:03] Speaker A: Do you think it's because of, it's an older demographic? Do you think that has something to do with it?
[00:24:08] Speaker B: I think it's that. I think that it's warm so they need to, they need to do more to have it feel like Christmas.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: Right.
[00:24:15] Speaker B: I think, I think it's a, I think it's a little bit of, a lot of things that contribute to it.
Some of the biggest trees we've ever sold over my, you know, my 25 year career have been in Florida.
[00:24:27] Speaker A: Really?
That's interesting. I'm trying to think of how Orlando decorates for Christmas a lot.
Yeah. And I'm, I'd love to see Miami at Christmas time. I wonder if I've been there. I'm trying to think because, you know, I spent half my life there and Florida's my, you know, my heart's in Florida and in New York. And then I go, I go in January every.
Back to Florida in January every year. So just family there. Yeah. My, my. When I have identical twin brother and his family and my older brother and his family and so they all live in the, you know, in Florida. So I go back to Florida for the, for January. Nice. Hang out my parents and drive them crazy.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: I think that's a good.
If I had to pick a month to not be in New York, it would be January.
[00:25:06] Speaker A: It's perfect. It's actually, it's. I think it's perfect because, you know, it's post, you know, the biggest season of the year. And so everybody's back in school. No one's traveling really. It's older than, you know what, it's windy.
It's.
[00:25:22] Speaker B: It's my least favorite time.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. It is mine too. And so, and actually tours really slowed down that month. Month two.
I don't want to walk around the city. It's biting cold, you know, so I go, go hang out with my parents. But last year, what's funny is I went to Florida. So excited to, you know, hang out. My parents thinking like the lanai doors would be opened or whatever. And it rained and it was freezing the entire time I was there. And then the last day I got sunny and I was like, of course, the day I leave Florida, it's back at 70, 80 degrees. But the entire month it rained and it was ice, ice cold.
[00:25:56] Speaker B: I heard that a bunch from people.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
So it's just funny.
[00:26:01] Speaker B: One thing I learned about what we do here in New York and around the country is everyone expects Christmas, but no one knows what it takes to like, do a project.
[00:26:16] Speaker A: Right.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: Like we just did. We just have a new. We have a new client in Midtown who spent 45 hours with us between a Friday and a Sunday.
That's how long we were on their property.
[00:26:28] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: And to keep it was rolling crews coming in and out. And at the end he was like, I can't believe this is what it takes to decorate our building. Big project.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: Right.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: But they couldn't fathom like what it took to put up a 40 foot Christmas tree and two 20 foot reefs.
[00:26:49] Speaker A: Right.
[00:26:49] Speaker B: And I think that is for a lot of people. They just show up one day by design, and it's up.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: Right.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: But so much of what we do is not about a Christmas tree or Santa or decorations.
It's engineering, it's logistics, it's timing. And I think a lot of that gets lost in, you know, just seeing something really pretty.
[00:27:15] Speaker A: I. I agree. Do you do the red Christmas ornaments correct?
[00:27:18] Speaker B: We don't do that.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: You don't do that?
[00:27:19] Speaker B: That's one of the few. We do.
[00:27:20] Speaker A: One of the few, yes. You know, but thinking of, you know, that actually seen how Christmas, you know, decorations are put together is watching the red Christmas ornaments and with the crane and everything. And it takes time, you know, and.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:32] Speaker A: And watch. I was watching the sunken tree. What's it called? Is that what it's called?
[00:27:35] Speaker B: That's Rockefeller Management. 1221 yeah Avenue and watching.
[00:27:40] Speaker A: I was watching that one night and how much work they put. It took a few days kind of to watch them put that together.
[00:27:45] Speaker B: That job we.
A Friday night and it ends on Sunday morning.
[00:27:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Because, you know, I saw them putting it together and I was thinking, oh, awesome, I can come. Come here and do a real and put it on social media. And the next morning I came and they were hard at work putting it together. I'm like, wow, this is a lot more than I anticipated.
[00:28:02] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:28:02] Speaker A: You know, I can give you a.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Time lapse if you wanted it, that.
[00:28:06] Speaker A: Would be really cool, actually. Seriously.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: Yeah. We have it for.
[00:28:09] Speaker A: People would love that. Oh, my gosh. I would love to. That.
[00:28:13] Speaker B: Yes. We can do a job quickly.
But so much of it is timing and a lot of manpower. Again, there's. We're over 400 people with their subcontractors.
[00:28:24] Speaker A: What is the biggest project that you do?
[00:28:27] Speaker B: From a time perspective, it would be Saks Fifth Avenue.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: That's what I was going to say.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: We start installing Saks Fifth Avenue in September.
And opening night is usually the Monday before Thanksgiving.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:28:42] Speaker B: So from a pure timing perspective, number of nights, number of trucks. Sachs is the biggest.
[00:28:49] Speaker A: Yep. Every year I watch, you know, it's starting little by little. You can see signs that they're starting to put the Christmas decorations, whatever the theme is that year, on the front of Sax. And we all get super excited to see, like, that's my. One of my very. That's. To me, that's the first inclination that Christmas is coming. You see something on the front of stacks and. But we don't really know what it is. Yeah. But we're like, oh, it's starting. And I think you said September, right?
[00:29:16] Speaker B: Yes. You know, early September.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: And then.
Okay, so two years ago, they had the big, like, a horoscope type thing. Yeah.
[00:29:24] Speaker B: That was when they partnered with Dior.
[00:29:26] Speaker A: Yeah. And we didn't know what that was. We didn't even know if it was Christmas because it was September 1st. So that was kind of cool how we were guessing, like, what is this? Is this Christmas? But it's only September. But then we saw, like, the enormous scale of that. I'd love that, too. Do you have a favorite decoration in New York City or what? Say you're a couple. So we won't pick one. What are your couple of your favorite decorations that you love to do or see in New York City?
[00:29:53] Speaker B: So, ironically.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: My favorite decoration in New York City is something I don't do.
[00:30:02] Speaker A: What is that?
[00:30:02] Speaker B: So it's the wreaths around the neck of the tigers. I think they're tigers at the public Library.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: I was just gonna say that.
[00:30:11] Speaker B: Yeah, that is my favorite.
[00:30:14] Speaker A: Those are iconic.
[00:30:16] Speaker B: And it's just so subtle and so simple what we do. I always say our goal is to highlight architecture, not compete with the architecture.
[00:30:26] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:30:26] Speaker B: And I think that location.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: Those are the statement pieces.
And the wreath around the neck just highlights it perfectly.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: I agree.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: There's a nice story about that. I feel like. And so that's my favorite thing.
[00:30:43] Speaker A: Oh, that's really cool. And it's so simple, too. Simple and elegant.
[00:30:46] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: So this is a little side note. Do you know the names of the lions?
[00:30:50] Speaker B: I do not.
[00:30:51] Speaker A: So their names are Patience and Fortitude.
And the way you remember which is which, I don't know how that makes sense, but it says patience is on the left, but fortitude is on the right.
[00:31:04] Speaker B: When looking at it.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: Yes, you're facing it. That's.
[00:31:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: Thanks for saying that. When you're facing the New York Public Library, Patience is on your left and fortitude is on your right because fortitude is on 42nd.
So that's a little rhymy timey kind.
[00:31:19] Speaker B: Of way to remember this comes back to me needing to be a tourist in New York and learn all this stuff.
[00:31:23] Speaker A: Well, just spend the day with me. We'll walk around, you know.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: Yeah, get a few drinks.
[00:31:28] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
We could have a cart with us pulling a car.
[00:31:32] Speaker B: I like that.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: That would be hilarious. What a great idea. Have like a rolling cart with drinks, you know, walk around the city. So our listeners are, you know, come.
[00:31:41] Speaker B: With us for four days to learn everything about New York.
[00:31:45] Speaker A: You might not remember it, but, you.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: Know, but it'll be fun.
[00:31:49] Speaker A: It'll be really fun. That's hilarious. And I love that. I love that.
[00:31:53] Speaker C: Do you design every year the different installations? What's the process like? Do people come to you with the building? You did like, hey, we want to decorate our building and then do you canvas it, look at, see what could go where and then make a design for it? And then.
[00:32:12] Speaker B: So we talked about the timeframe, but the process. We have two different types of clients.
We have clients who want us to do all of that work. They want us to design, engineer, fabricate, store, refurbish, install, remove, and so on.
Then we have clients who say, this is exactly what we want. You have to give us this. Go figure it out. Okay, so we can do anything. We can be the designers, or quite frankly, we can just be the executors of someone who already has a design. Okay, but we have, we have a, we have a design department, project management department, account management department, and a production department. And those teams, all those teams work together to deliver for whatever it is our client needs are. But we, we like to do it all. Yeah, but there's a lot of times where our clients will have an in house designer who says, this is what we need, it's right for our brand, but we need you to figure out how to do it for us.
And we excel in both areas. We like both markets, but that's typically how it happened.
[00:33:27] Speaker B: Our. Our expertise is Christmas decorations.
We. We sit on over. We have millions of dollars of inventory to sell our clients. We have over 300,000 square feet of space of just Christmas decorations that are new, used, pre owned, and also contracted.
So when we go into a project, no matter what scale, what size it is, we take our arsenal of inventory with us. And that's typically how we build these things.
[00:34:02] Speaker A: Cool.
[00:34:02] Speaker C: Yeah. That's so interesting.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: That's a great question, Jay.
That's a good question.
So, Dan, do you have any stories of unexpected thing that's ever happened during an installation or any fun stories that you can think of?
[00:34:19] Speaker B: A few things come to mind.
We've been in the middle of an installation and we've had a couple get proposed to.
[00:34:29] Speaker B: While we're loading out our trucks moving boxes. Like, like the guys have to stop because the. The guy gets down on one knee to propose.
So that was. That was a fun one. And they had a video crew there.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: That is pretty cool.
[00:34:44] Speaker B: So like we're in the background and they actually sent us the video.
[00:34:47] Speaker A: Oh, nice.
[00:34:48] Speaker B: So I mentioned that because they acknowledged us being there and like played into it. I think we've also had another situation, you know, I like where when it snows, it sometimes gets a little bit tricky.
[00:35:02] Speaker A: I bet we've had it.
[00:35:04] Speaker B: We were once doing a big tree in midtown and it's snowing like heck.
And we took the entire team to Central park after, and we were just screwing around and having fun.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: Oh, that's awesome.
[00:35:18] Speaker B: So there's that. We.
[00:35:20] Speaker A: Nothing like Central park in the snow.
[00:35:22] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, we don't get that anymore.
[00:35:24] Speaker A: Early. Exactly.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: Not so good situations.
I've been in this now. Being stuck in a freight elevator for five hours because it broke down.
[00:35:34] Speaker C: Oh, no.
[00:35:35] Speaker A: Oh, that stressed me out.
[00:35:37] Speaker B: Stressing out. Stressing out because I can't talk to the outside world because there's no service in a freight elevator.
[00:35:43] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: And our team doesn't know where we are, but five hours locked in a freight elevator in New York. In New York. In New York City.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: Wow.
So I would not like that.
[00:35:53] Speaker B: And that's actually a common thing. We. That happens a lot in our world. Not so much 20 years ago so much anymore. But free freight elevators fail.
[00:36:04] Speaker A: Yeah, that would. I would not like that.
[00:36:06] Speaker B: So that was a difficult one during the election.
You know, we're installing. So we've had. We've been involved in protests before where we've actually had to stop the installations because of protests.
[00:36:21] Speaker A: Hey, Dan, is there any. Any Holiday displays that seemed impossible to do, but you ended up being able to do it.
[00:36:28] Speaker A: I think like in theory, you know, someone had an idea and then you're like, I don't know if we could do that, then it can't. It worked out well.
[00:36:34] Speaker B: Yeah. I think we go through that with sex every year.
It's like, how are we gonna do this? And then the, I gotta say, the meeting of the minds happens.
[00:36:45] Speaker A: And how do you do it then? Like for instance, you know, this year's, you know, the Diamonds are Beautiful and like, who came up with that idea? How does that happen?
[00:36:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a sex concept, but it, there's a, there's six to 10 people involved in that process.
[00:37:00] Speaker A: So sacks, it's Sacks idea what they.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: Want most of the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And for us it's more about how do we engineer it and come up with it. There's a lighting designer, there's a technical designer, there's an engineer, there's a, there's a logistics person talking about. We can make. You can only make these pieces this large because you can't get them in and out of the city.
[00:37:21] Speaker A: But then in addition to the daily show, what, it's every 10 minutes after 5pm, like 5 to 11 or something.
But then you have to also, in addition to all that, do the opening night with the fireworks and everything.
[00:37:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:37:35] Speaker A: You know, which is another.
It's like a whole different installation in a sense, right?
[00:37:39] Speaker B: It is, yeah. And our team who manages that with Sachs does an incredible job.
[00:37:43] Speaker A: Oh my gosh, they do.
[00:37:45] Speaker B: We've been working, we've been doing that late show for Saks Fifth Avenue for over 20 years. It is 21 years.
It's over 20 years. It's something like that. And for us, it's. We take a lot of pride in that.
[00:37:59] Speaker A: I was just going to say it's.
[00:38:01] Speaker B: It's something that we, we don't own sex, but we feel like we own that display for sex.
[00:38:08] Speaker A: Heck yeah.
[00:38:09] Speaker B: And our, our entire company will do whatever we need to do for all of our clients.
But you know, a lot of our average client has been with us for 12 years and it continues to get longer.
It gets longer year over year.
My average staff member has been with us for eight years. I like to say we're in the long term game. Christmas comes once a year.
[00:38:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:35] Speaker B: So for us, my goal is to maintain relationships. We're not perfect.
We try to be great.
Sometimes we come up short.
But our goal is to provide exceptional customer service when we do well, we don't want to hear about it when we do bad. We want to hear about it. In my mind, if we continue with the. Let's just always do the right thing, we'll continue to have those long lasting clients.
[00:39:04] Speaker A: That is so amazingly said. That was very inspiring.
[00:39:07] Speaker B: That's how we operate.
[00:39:08] Speaker A: That's.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: That's the core of the business.
[00:39:09] Speaker A: That's why. Successful.
[00:39:11] Speaker B: Yes, but that's also why we don't see our family during the season, because we tear ourselves apart for that mindset.
[00:39:18] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, that's true.
But, but we thank you and we, we appreciate you.
[00:39:24] Speaker B: I appreciate you.
[00:39:25] Speaker A: The whole world appreciates you and what you do and all the amazing people who work with you and for you, you know, to make this beautiful city even more beautiful at Christmas time. So thank you. It's incredible.
[00:39:37] Speaker B: Thank you. I appreciate you showing off our work.
[00:39:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Happy to. Proud to. I mean, what an honor to say, you know, from your perspective, sexist avenue. Oh, that's what I do. I made that. You know, I mean, how cool is that?
[00:39:51] Speaker B: Yeah. I have a, I have a funny story.
My daughter is seven and she, the teacher calls. Last year, last year, teacher calls and says.
[00:40:05] Speaker B: Charlotte has to stop telling everyone her dad works for Santa.
[00:40:11] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:40:12] Speaker B: And Tara is like, ah, that's a difficult one.
[00:40:17] Speaker B: Kind of does. It's kind of a touchy subject at home, but, you know, it's like I, it comes with us wherever we go. It's ingrained in our family at this point.
[00:40:27] Speaker A: Oh, I love that though. That's. That's really cute. I love that. It moved me. That's really cool. I love it. Love it.
[00:40:34] Speaker C: Do you do the displays for Grand Central?
[00:40:38] Speaker B: We don't do the displays for Grand Central.
Wish we did, but they're awesome.
[00:40:42] Speaker C: They are.
[00:40:43] Speaker A: Yeah, they. They are.
[00:40:43] Speaker B: And the company that does it did a great job with it.
The new. What they do there, right across the street. You're talking about in the plaza area?
[00:40:53] Speaker C: Well, I mean, even in the station. All the reefs and.
[00:40:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's iconic and they do a wonderful job.
[00:40:58] Speaker C: Yeah, Yeah. I mean, I, I love going through there, but all the tourists during the holiday season looking at the stuff, I'm like, I'm trying to get to work.
[00:41:06] Speaker B: And I always have to remember it's that location where I always remind myself to look up.
I don't just, don't just always be dark.
[00:41:16] Speaker A: Grand Central.
[00:41:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, all the time. Like just look up and enjoy it.
[00:41:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Constellation and.
[00:41:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: Just, just, just stop. Stop. Always going somewhere You.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: You know, it's funny you said that, because I, in general, when I always tell people in New York City to always look behind you just because the views are just as beautiful behind you as they're in front of you. Like, you might turn.
[00:41:37] Speaker B: Oh, that's interesting.
[00:41:37] Speaker A: You know, you might turn a corner and look behind you. You might turn a corner, but look behind you. Because then the Empire State body might be behind you. You know, the.
The Christ ability might be behind you. Or the sex. Fifth Avenue decorations. Any of your decorations that you may have done are behind you. You have created are behind you now. So I always tell people, always look behind you when you're walking in New York City because you may be. There's a view you may be missing that you don't even know about.
[00:42:02] Speaker B: That I said beautiful perspective. I've never thought about that.
[00:42:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I say it to people all the time. Well, sometimes people laugh. I'm like, always look. I always tell people to look behind you in New York City, and people start laughing because they think for safety reasons, you know? And I'm like, no, because it's just so much beauty behind you as well.
Okay, quick questions, quick fire questions. Best pizza in New York City.
[00:42:24] Speaker B: Best pizza in New York City.
[00:42:26] Speaker A: Where's your go to? It could be even where you live.
[00:42:28] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I'm. I'm a. I'm a. To be honest, I'm like a $99 slice guy.
[00:42:34] Speaker A: Yeah, me too.
[00:42:34] Speaker B: So. So any. Any of those fast pizza joints where it's a dollar 99? I. I'll always stop.
[00:42:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I will too. Favorite subway line. So you take the subway?
[00:42:46] Speaker B: So, yeah, I would say probably the two.
[00:42:50] Speaker A: Oh. As I'm around the two. Are you on the two that much?
[00:42:52] Speaker C: Not a whole lot, but yeah, I take it.
[00:42:54] Speaker A: I've learned to like it more because it takes you into Brooklyn, the first stop, and then you can walk closer to the promenade. I just learned that recently.
[00:43:01] Speaker B: That's the only reason why? Because that.
The way I go.
[00:43:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Nice, nice, nice.
Do you have a favorite neighborhood to wander during Christmas? Asides from Midtown?
[00:43:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say soho.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: Oh, really?
[00:43:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:17] Speaker A: That's interesting.
I gotta walk through soho and check it out a little bit better because of the architecture.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
[00:43:24] Speaker B: So I like to see what Christmas decorations are going on with the architecture here.
[00:43:30] Speaker A: I agree.
I think I might know the answer to this. NYC in the snow. Magical or miserable?
[00:43:37] Speaker B: Magical while it's snowing. Miserable after the snow is done.
[00:43:41] Speaker A: There you go. Perfectly said. Perfectly said. Yeah.
[00:43:45] Speaker B: For that time it's snowing. I think it's awesome.
[00:43:47] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:43:48] Speaker B: The second the snow stops, it's an issue.
[00:43:52] Speaker A: That's a great answer. Well, thanks, Dan. This has been awesome. It's been incredible talking with you. It's been fun.
So informative. I can feel your passion for what you do. It's just truly inspiring. So thank you for that too. And thanks for taking on this journey, learning about all these Christmas decorations here in New York City.
So huge. Thank you, my friend.
[00:44:14] Speaker B: Thank you. Thanks for having me. Nice meeting you.
[00:44:17] Speaker A: So, Dan, before we let you go, we here at the New Yorkers Podcast want to know what Christmas in New York means to you. Dan Castarella Yeah, I think for me.
[00:44:27] Speaker B: It ties back to what I said earlier about enjoying the people watch our displays and come to the city to see it. But it's about spending time with family, creating tradition, and being.
[00:44:47] Speaker B: Relaxed and happy in a world when it's very difficult to be relaxed and happy all the time.
[00:44:54] Speaker A: Bam. Great answer right there.
[00:44:57] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a really good answer.
[00:44:59] Speaker A: Thank you for joining us today for this week's episode of the New Yorkers Podcast. Why don't you let everyone know where they can find you on social media? Dan?
[00:45:06] Speaker B: Yeah, you can Visit
[email protected] Yep. And Christmas in America.com and social media.
It would be American Christmas and Christmas Hyphen in hyphen America.
[00:45:22] Speaker B: I think that's it.
[00:45:23] Speaker A: Once again, I'm your host, Kelly Kopp, also known as New York City Cop, all across my social media.
[00:45:29] Speaker B: Please like and subscribe to New Yorkers Podcast and you can follow the New Yorkers on social media at the New Yorkers Podcast.
[00:45:36] Speaker A: You can leave a rating or a comment to let us know how you are enjoying the show. We read through all your comments and DMs, so please, we would love to hear from you. Thank you Lee Mcarrett, Carrie, 31 and Anna Montel Magnuson for your kind words on the last episode. If you want to be featured at the end of an episode, leave a rating on Apple Podcasts or a comment on Spotify. And also thank you Lynn F. Evans, Eileen Pearson and Matt Joseph for your comments on Facebook.
[00:46:03] Speaker B: I would like to thank the staff at American Christmas for allowing me to be here. You know I'm here because of all of you and our wonderful clients who have put all of their faith and trust in us to deliver holiday to their location. Thank you.
[00:46:20] Speaker A: That's amazing, Dan. That's amazing, Dan. That's really nice. Have a lovely day everyone. And we will see you next time. Bye. Bye.
[00:46:30] Speaker A: This is the last stop on this train. Everyone please leave the train. Thank you for riding with mta New York City Transit.
