[Music] from the people picking up millions of pounds of trash a day to the cleaners who scrub the 9/11 Memorial in the dark and the Queens Bagel makers Who start rolling at 3:00 a.m. we met some of the New York City Heroes who keep America's busiest city moving in Queens the city's famous Utopia Bagels makes 15,000 Bagels a day by hand it all starts with a 41-year-old dough recipe that uses barley mold it's a really old school way of doing a bagel most stores that make bagels today use brown sugar but to make a good quality Bagel you need this ingredient next they add salt and a large scoop of patus bagel improver so what that does it softens the dough inside and it crisps the crust outside then they start filling mixer with New York City top water but it has to be at just the right temperature we tend to use water that's around 60° 62 63 but temperatures of the water may change when it's hotter and colder throughout the year then it's time to add in 200 lb of allpurpose flour a small portion compared to what they have on hand you're looking at about 7,000 lb of flour almost a 2day amount for us that will go through all this flour and this is actually just one of my mountains of flour the final ingredient is yeast but for flavored Bagels the recipe may change slightly to include eggs sugar or freeze dried blueberries depending on the flavor there is no set time for when the dough is finished mixing according to Scott it takes a Keen Eye and years of experience it's a thing called old when it's ready how long you been making Bagels 18 years 18 years Daniel's been rolling 18 years it takes understanding the temperature in the air it takes understanding his machine that he works with how long it should mix all these things are such important factors about what happens with our Bagel Once the dough reaches the desired consistency it's cut into sections and transferred over to the rolling table where it's then formed into one large Mount we can make up to 15,000 Bagels in a day and this will make approximately 1,000 Bagels they cover the entire thing with a plastic sheet to help soften the dough before rolling and it's only about a 5 minute process that allows that dough to connect a little better with each other they're saying hello how are you all those ingredients are basically doing that right now at any given point there are four expert rers on H these skilled men have between 15 and 27 years of experience perfecting their craft something Scott says is a Dying Breed there's not a school of rolling Bagels out there right now and these people are experts at their field listen I think Derek jeta said it best if you put 10,000 hours into something you're a professional and Daniel has definitely put 10,000 hours into it it takes an hour to an hour and a half for these hand rollers to individually slice roll and twist about 1,000 Bagel it takes a certain type of character because it's very tedious you're cutting the same thing over and over and I can tell who is rolling what Bagel by the way they lock their bagel and form it together Daniel has that little lip here that I noticed about Daniel's rolling then I can see you know those were Daniel's bagels and it gives each Bagel their own personality our bagels are like snowflakes everyone is individually different and that's what makes it special once the bagels are rolled they're placed on this racks covered with plastic and left to proof for a half hour they then move into one of three fridges to ferment for at least 24 hours what we're going to do now is open these Bagels up cuz we still have to reduce the heat to stop the rising of these Bagels we tend to stop the proofing where a lot of places tend to expand their proofing so that bagels are bigger there's a misconception that bigger bagels are better and they're not by far as you see each rack has a proximately 1,000 Bagels so you're looking at 10,000 15,000 Bagels right before your eyes and this is only one of my fridges that we keep the bagels here's my second fridge again you have racks of bagels 1 2 3 4 we have close to 7 8,000 more Bagels so these this is basically what we'll keep our everyday making of the bagels now it's time for Fun and Games we're going to start baking some bagels we'll always have two people working the oven so there's a kettle man what you'll call him so he'll control the flow of the bagels into the kettle and then there's the guy on the oven that will be his director but the kettle is the ultimate guy in control because he knows when that bagel's ready to come out of that kettle it's so important once the bagels have been properly boiled they're scooped over to boards that have been pre-seasoned with the appropriate flavors such as puppy Sesame or the very popular everything mix now are these hot yes they are very hot but if you watch me I'm constantly dipping my hand in water to remove some of that heat now this again is where we put on both sides so we're seasoning both boards both sides after workers carefully coat each Bagel they move the boards into the oven now why we're putting them on boards because if we put these Bagels in straight they would stick to the Slate that they're being cooked on we put six Bagels on a board there's 16 boards that'll go into the oven we have a middle be Marshall a 1947 oven it is the heart and soul of my business we're able to produce up to 1,000 Bagels an hour on it after a few rotations around the oven the boards are flipped so the bottom of the bagels can cook evenly then they're ready to be pulled and served to customers see these are so look at it look at the color on this Bagel look at that beautiful crisp crust my son always does the knock test but feel that crisp crust look at that steam coming out of that Bagel in total Utopia Bagels offers 30 kinds of Bagles and various sandwiches like the bacon egg and cheese or the classic locks 43 staff members make up Utopia bagels and they all work like a well oiled machine to serve the 3,500 customers who visit the shop every week we're busiest on the weekend Saturday and Sunday we could have a line lasting for 8 hours straight but you get me crying about my customers cuz our fan base is like none other it's like a landmark everybody has been coming here for over 50 years it's like a home place for everybody it's the atmosphere it's the people it's the owner everybody's so nice here and when you come in you feel welcomed everything is good I've been around to other bagel stores but there's no place like home Scott treats you like family when you come here Utopia Bagels is the best the most important thing about our Bagels is right here and I get emotional about it but it's the heart heart and soul every worker here has heart and soul it truly is something I live for and something we work at you know my passion for making people smile with our food and what we produce is a joy for me it really is this is Jim he's cleaning the reflecting pools at the 9/11 Memorial in New York City Jim and his team are working beneath a 27 7t tall waterfall in near total darkness vacuuming every inch of the pool their goal is to do it without missing a spot it's a physically demanding job but that's not the only challenge I've never actually mocked how many miles it is but you do a few miles in there and it could be humid and you come out of there and uh it feel like you walked on the moon almost the pools are nearly an acre each so it would take hours to finish the job before the sun comes up while he works inside the pool other crew members work on the bronze panels above ground these routines happen 5 days a week and are essential for keeping the memorial in pristine condition for the millions who come to pay their respects here they start by shutting off the waterfalls and over the next 8 hours Jim and his team work tirelessly to de clean this pool the hardest part is it's it's a long test the pool is Big it's not a uh a swimming pool you know it's a 200 by 200 Giant pool I'm going to pull the hose out and then bring it back or whatever just you don't have to use the whole real we have too much hose we usually have three men through the pools of two guys be in the pool and one guy will be outside running the the pumps which collect the uh debris and return the clean water back to the pool once we're set we're on our way I go and vacuum generally and I I have whoever's with me that night brushes behind come on hurry up sorry we got all day here all right the vacuum will capture most of the debris and the person brushing will knock up some of the other loose debris that doesn't get caught and it will be caught into like some of our filters that we have running downstairs now I'm trapped in the hose here I'm going to trip myself and we'll be on America's bloopers the workers generally clean out dirt leaves and algae from the bottom of the pools they also remove larger items that visitors drop or throw in they don't always know what they'll encounter in the pool each night we find kids toys little small items depends on the the crowd one night I actually found a a bat in there and I'm not talking about a baseball bat I'm talking about a bat it was pretty wild when it flew away from me when when I realized I was grabbing a bat depending on the cleanliness of the pool it could take anywhere between six and seven hours and sometimes if we feel up to it we could do it a little quicker some people treat this place like a wishing well so we do catch some money and unfortunately I think some people being that it's so far removed from the original 9/11 I think some people are a little uh uneducated about this place and some people treated like just a regular Fountain and they're throwing garbage in here sometimes too you know people have to learn that this is your uh Mall fountain I knew few of the uh Brokers that passed away a whole uh a whole group of them had a meeting in one of the towers unfortunately and uh except for one one Traer all of them perished I I think about them often because we go up top where the names are and brush near the name plates the troughs and uh on the north side they're all all on one panel so I see I see their names just about every day total waste of uh lives that you know could have been doing good good in the world now while Jim and the team finished cleaning the pools below Ryan is tackling the bronze name panels above the panels honor the 2,983 victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center both in 1993 and 2001 Ryan will have to strip the top layer of metal and use a blowtorch to remove a carving someone etched onto the plaque without damaging the rest of the memorial this confuses me why you want to write something [Music] here for a mark like that you have to go pretty deep get all the way down otherwise you can't really get rid of it if you don't go down far enough you'll see it when you refinish it the further down you go the better sometimes I've seen nice things written but you know you they don't understand you just you can't just write whatever you want on it after briefly assessing the damage Ryan needs to remove the protective bars so he can reach the entire metal surface to do this he props up the bars with a wood Plank and unhooks the brackets holding up the panels now what I'll do is uh rub it down with a NAFTA it's almost like like a paint thinner it just kind of takes the wax off so I'm not burning wax if I can open it and it shouldn't take too long once I get the torch on it there's so much in the prep and then the finishing the torch is actually not that bad after sanding down the top layer of panel and neutralizing the wax Ryan is ready to blowtorch the damaged area to melt the metal in the patina so he can repaint the color layer and restore the panel to its original state this is what we use and it's basically just a patina in a solution oh I haven't used you in a while prep them so I'm basically getting up to a right temperature if it's too cold it it'll go on spotty if it's too hot it'll kind of evaporate off or it'll get burnt in the summer months the longest part of the job is waiting for the burned panel to cool before applying a new layer of wax and an acrylic top coat to finish the restoration process we're going to put the acrylic spray on it just kind of like a clear coat helps it kind of adhere a little bit better the last step really well besides buffing the wax off so I'm just going to put the wax on real nice not too hard not a lot you don't need a ton just put it on lightly the wax will go over the finish and make it look once I polish it it'll look brand new got a little bit of heat but that's cuz it's still hot but it was right here now all right has to do is buff off the excess wax using a white scotchbrite pad and then once it gets smooth you know you're done when people do something like that I wouldn't say it makes me angry I get it some of these people might not have even been alive when it happened or they were too young to get it my uncle was a New York City firefighter and he was hurt really bad here but uh luckily he survived we got we got a little lucky after a strenuous to 7 hours of cleaning Jim and the team are ready to head out of the pool by tomorrow morning a new batch of visitors will see sparkling pools below rushing waterfalls and most of them won't know that Jim's team was even here when we uh finished the pool most of the time we just were just ready to really get out of there and most of our inspection we you know we're fairly confident that we did the proper job there's always a little fail Factor but you know not too bad my father worked in these buildings almost his whole life and my father was here for uh the 93 bombing and that was before cell phones and everything and he was the he was on the 30th floor of the uh second tower when he was there he was like the floor Marshal he came home full of soot but he stayed there because there was people that couldn't get down the steps so he made sure that he stayed with them so I I think on 911 day you know if he was here uh we probably would have lost him because he wouldn't have left he passed away a couple of years ago he was always so proud of other the job I I probably had chances to do other things in this building but even if I wanted to do another job I wouldn't because of him and I and now you know I I love doing it so I do it New York City's Department of Sanitation sends its Fleet of 2,000 garbage trucks to start picking up at 5:00 a.m. you have to keep active some guys like to work out some guys don't basically it depends on you what do you do me I don't work out this is my workout this is my daily workout that's Frank a 23-year veteran sanitation worker well you get immune to the smell you don't smell garbage you smell money checking to see how solid it is you can tell when the truck is full Frank heads to the dump station in the the Upper East Side by then the sun's coming up we are currently at 91st Street MPS doors we'll open as the truck comes in and there's radiation detectors that will read the truck trucks pause at the way station to help the city keep track of how much trash New Yorkers produce then handles tilt the hopper then she'll push the blade and the blade will push the the material all the way out to clear the whole truck it's roughly 450 to 600 tons a day tractors move the trash into the containers beneath the ground it's sort of a dance one FPL will clear the wall and one FPL will low containers getting the material containerized as quickly as possible and sealed keeps that smell down a Stamper then packs in the garbage mattresses are used like a sponge to sop up anything left over when we have garbage onoy it'll take anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes to load a container once the department of sanitation seals a container and slides it out to the dock responsibility then goes to covanta the waste Energy company handles two Marine transfer St in the city containers are picked up by the crane and put on the barge 48 containers go on the barge every one of these containers represents a truck load that we have taken off of the city streets and out of the tunnels reducing carbon emissions and reducing congestion and wear and tear on the city's infrastructure a tug attaches to the loaded trash barge tug Captain Jason Harris is now in charge he gets to go ahead for a 9:30 a.m. departure what you see here is is called Hell's Gate this is the upper end of the East River tides play a major factor in the times that we can transfer barges you can't go against the tide when it's Max tide it's too strong we would actually come to a dead stop on this boat and Barge you wait until you can go with it quite often a barge gets gets filled up and we will have to wait two three maybe 4 hours before the tide is is in the favor he navigates this heavy load safely along one of the busiest waterways in the world down the East River through New York Harbor to Staten Island 3 hours later the Tug and Barge back up into the global transfer station it is an inherently dangerous operation to move heavy equipment overhead then a train takes it to one of kant's waste energy facilities it can also get there via truck all of Manhattan's residential trash goes to waste energy facilities like this one to be burned and turned into electricity this facility processes up to a million tons of waste annually once the trucks scale in and come up to the Tipping floor they dump in front of one of these Bays tractors push the trashed into a massive storage pit 93 ft deep and 270 ft long between 8 and 9,000 tons are in the refu pit it's about 3 to 4 days worth of trash a giant grapple claw descends over the trash in one swoop it can pick up as much as one trash truck carries [Music] the claw builds a wall of trash to prevent it from avalanching onto the Tipping floor it also helps to make more space for incoming refuges you look at garbage a very different way since I've been working here we create a lot of garbage as as a population two claws work together in tandem dumping trash into Hoppers leading to the incinerator Romeo is an expert giant claw operator 21 years of playing the CL there is no shortage of fuel for our boilers Toy Story is the first thing everyone thinks of Disney actually got inspiration for the Toy Story 3 incinerator sequence from aant plant the incinerators burn the trash at 2000° F it takes 1 to 2 hours to burn an entire Hopper load we've now entered the control room area of the plant this is the brain of the operation yes it is and here's your brain he's got camera views of the combustion Zone how important are you for this this place running correctly how important am I I am the guy I I am the guy he's in the hot seat Russell monitors as the furnace heats up steam turning this turbine and generating enough energy to power this plant and 46,000 homes in the region after everything burn all that's left over is Ash and metal this magnet pulls off enough metal to make 21,000 cars the leftover Ash goes to cover landfills next the plant tackles those nasty fumes but burning trash causes first leftover gases go through a scrubber reactor a lime slurry cleans any acid gases and activated carbon absorbs pollutants then it goes through a bag house basically a bunch of filters so what's left coming out of that Smoke Stack constituents of the flu gas is what's in normal air like nitrogen carbon dioxide moisture the alternative to this would be going to a landfill waste to energy does produce CO2 emissions but in a year this process eliminates a million tons of CO2 emissions a landfill would have produced we generate a very small amount of methane the methane we offset from a landfill results in an actual decrease of CO2 emissions the city hopes to keep moving trash on waterways to facilities like this one it's all part of its goal of becoming zero waste to landfill by 2030 but that is becoming harder and harder to reach only about 30% of New York City's waste turns into energy the rest ends up in harmful methane producing landfills as far away as South Carolina and Ohio and it takes a significant investment to move it every year exporting trash costs the city about $400 million so why does New York City send its trash so far away in 1881 New York city streets were notoriously filthy so dirty people were getting sick so the department of sanitation was established to clean up the streets and the department did help mop up the the city but the city quickly ran out of room to put all of its trash in the early 1900s the city turned a dumping trash into the ocean even though it was illegal as much as 80% of the city's trash ended up in the sea this continued until 1934 when a Supreme Court case forced the city to stop ocean dumping in the 70s incinerators used for much of the 1900s were closed down because they didn't meet the epa's clean a standards so the city opened up landfills across the five burrows including at one point the world largest in 1973 New York even built out lower Manhattan using trash Mounds but even that wasn't enough with nowhere else to put it the city began sending its waste to other states most of the landfills in this area have been closed down so the available landfills are getting further and further away exporting trash is a costly practice with a big environmental footprint and it puts the burden on communities far from these shiny skyscrapers for now New York City's only choice is to keep exporting the trash but ultimately the department says the best solution would be getting New Yorkers to waste less altogether trash is like one of those things that you put it outside and forget about it I think everybody should know what happens to what they get rid of if you know where it's going and you don't like where it's going maybe you'll find ways to recycle things in lower Manhattan the city's oldest running Deli cat's serves up to 4,000 customers a [Music] day hey guys it's spenc and I'm outside cats's delicatess in this is one of the most legendary places in New York City it's been here since 1888 so I'm going to go try their famous pastrami on rye and see if it lives up to the [Music] hype cats's Delicatessen has been a New York Institution for over 130 years the old school Deli is like a Living Museum not only is it the oldest Jewish deli in New York but it's one of the only delies of its kind still in operation at all coming to catas is a is a throwback it's a snapshot in time it's being connected to your parents to your grandparents to your great grandparents to your great great grandparents cuz they all came [Music] here we do not believe in changing pretty much anything from the walls uh to the Neons to the pictures to the staff to the food to the recipes we don't really believe in changing it you come here because you want that Nostalgia and that tradition and that food that you know and [Music] love Jewish deli food dates back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries when waves of Eastern European Jews immigrated to New York's Lower East Side bringing traditional Eastern European foods like cured meats and pickled vegetables along with them Deli became a meeting ground where tradition blended with new American [Music] culture at one time kosher style deli like Cates were a dime a dozen but thanks to things like gentrification and changing food Trends Cates is the only one that's been able to survive the Ages part of its success is due to exposure over the years cats's nostalgic setting has been the backdrop for countless movies and TV shows the most famous of which is Meg Ryan's iconic scene in When Harry Met Sally the scene with Meg Ryan is one of my favorite scenes in all the movies we've ever seen react it now oh not right yes yes yes I'll have what she's having Hollywood famous side cats's success is also thanks to the fact that their food is really just that good the menu has all the classics you'd expect from a Jewish deli but most people show up for their legendary Pastrami and corned beef can you describe uh what their pami tastes like to me he it's the only place in the world to get a pami sandwich I mean I would have it any place else it's about treating each piece of meat like you would a child and knowing what to do with it and how to take care of it from start to finish that makes us so special we cook it longer than anyone else we cook it so long that it would fall apart if you tried to put it in a slicer so it's so juicy so tender that you have to carve it by hand their hands sliced approach means each sandwich is expertly carved to order to keep the crowds moving katsis is set up with multiple Carvers at multiple counters and let's just say you better be prepared to order when you get in line so when you walk in you're going to get a ticket that's our system we've been doing it the same way for 131 years feed me be prepared because if you get all the way to the front of the line and don't know what you want you're going to get yelled at uh I would like pastrami on Ry but you already know what you want you want a pami you want some laas you want some matball soup you're good no problem don't worry about it so that was the easy part finding a seat is the hard [Music] part uh I don't know I might have to eat it standing up which I would uh so we have here the pami M uh just classic juicy perfect Fant you can't go wrong do you you have any tips for digging into this monster of a sandwich just do it just embrace it just go for it yeah Cheers Cheers all [Music] right oh my God go for it I'm me all right I'm going take my bite that is unreal that good oh man hit me one of those napkins I got to fix my [Music] face so this is the juiciest pami I've ever had thank you how is that possible 131 years of of practice that's how it's possible all right there you go eating that sandwich was a religious experience I'm talking mouth watering perfection even still it almost took a backseat to the actual experience of just being in that noisy chaotic room literally surrounded by cats's history photos from everyone who's come before and signs from a near forgotten era all of it a reminder that cats's will always be here for you just as it always has Timeless in a city barreling toward the future [Music] [Music] there's nothing like Nostalgia I mean there's nothing more powerful than than those Traditions I can't believe that this is my life and and this is what we get to do for a living is to preserve a tradition and make people happy hopefully um so it's it's humbling and it's a wonderful wonderful place to be Roosevelt Island the tiny sliver of land between Manhattan and Queens in New York City has been shooting its trash through tubes for nearly 50 years this was supposed to be the future of garbage no more curbside bags giant trucks and Vermin dozens of European cities have systems like this built into their infrastructure so how did Disney's Magical trash tubes end up on a tiny island in the middle of New York City and why hasn't the system taken off in the US pneumatic tubes date back to the early 1800s they essentially work like giant vacuums using compressed air to move objects from place to place over the following decades cities across the world began using tubes to deliver mail as well as medical supplies Bank notes and at one point even McDonald's but the idea was always to move people like in the Jetson oh boy by 1870 Alfred Eli Beach developed the first Subway in New York City using pneumatic power it only traveled the length of a city block and was more of a proof of concept than anything else when Rosevelt Island first opened its doors to Residents in 1975 developers had a unique opportunity to experiment with a new kind of Waste Management previously the island was home to a notorious Mental Health institution a smallpox Hospital and a prison this Penitentiary is by far the worst in the United States the island needed an image overhaul and a solution to trash disposal at the time New York City sanitation workers were on a 9-day strike more than a week went by with no garbage pickups and people were rioting the system was inspired by the one in Disney World's Magic Kingdom it was installed just a few years earlier and is still in use today so how do they work this is Roosevelt Island's avac facility automated vacuum assisted collection process is is really what it is Larry Carrick has worked as the Island's senior stationary engineer since 2018 and there's a lot to look after 1974 I believe this was all put in and operational this is still functional uh for the most part so yesterday was a 17-hour work day you know it's part of the job every day about 8 tons of trash run through these tubes eventually it all gets compressed into these containers the city's Department of Sanitation sends special trucks to pick them up three times a day along with containers filled with recyclables and bulk items too big for the Island's avac system the trash goes to a transfer station in Queens there it mingles with garbage from the rest of the City and is sent to landfills or incinerators that burn trash to make energy the avac system doesn't solve the issue of where our trash ends up but it does make the process of how it gets there a whole lot cleaner all of this happens out of sight for the 11,000 people who live on the island I've been here for 5 years I found out about two two weeks ago but the avac system is far from perfect Decades of wear and tear have left the pipes prone to jams and leaks especially when residents don't understand what the system can handle anything you could think of as far as crazy hockey sticks somebody threw a bed frame in there a bunch of carpeting backpacks and then I've heard about the infamous mattress and the infamous drawer goes around so it's something to laugh at fixing these jams requires some Creative Solutions so this basically spins when we have the handle on it or a machine hopefully it grabs into whatever is is the jam and we're able to pierce through the garbage once we get this in good we try to rip it out when it comes to bigger repairs someone has to crawl inside and these tubes are only 18 in in diameter if there's a leak on some of the pipe we'll have a gentleman that'll actually climb into this area he gets onto a skateboard along with some welding equipment and he'll end up skating in here so we can weld up the hold itself it's very simple intuitive easy process to use when it works when it doesn't work it stinks but despite the occasional breakdown many residents prefer it to traditional trash [Music] collection Judith birdie moved here in 1977 2 years after it opened to Residence and as president of the Roosevelt Island Historical Society she literally wrote the book on it oh what a wonderful book I think I'll read this she said she couldn't imagine trash collection any other way there's no way I want to tradition garbage pickup I love it that we don't have trash on the street you don't see a rat anywhere to be found on this [Music] place in other parts of the world avac systems have a more modern touch in Norway these different cans separate trash from Recycling and in Sweden and Spain some are even fully automated so why can't Americans just stuff their trash down the tube the main reason of course is money maintaining these systems is complicated and expensive also private developers don't really have any incentive to invest in this kind of infrastructure one of the guys who builds these systems Compares it to a sewer line how many times you have to flush the L in your apartment to amortize that investment right it's a basic service you have add your house and installing them is messy if not impossible it involves tearing down buildings to lay the pipes below ground that's especially tricky in New York City Manhattan has a huge complex underground things like the subway system gas lines electric pipelines that it would be essentially impossible to implement an avac system like the one we have here but at the polo grounds in Harlem New York City's Housing Authority is giving it a shot there's no one siiz fits-all approach for dense buildings and and for high-rise buildings pneumatic collection can really save a lot of room on the curb this will be the first time in half a century that an AAC system will be installed in the city the project will cost an estimated $31 million and will service 4,000 residents across four different buildings it's expected to be completed by summer 2024 if the project works it could serve as a model for the rest of the city and the country a Swedish company called envac designed the Roosevelt and Disney systems and it's looking to expand it it's American footprint we really think there's a huge potential Market in the US still long path we know it is not going to be easy Roosevelt Island might not be the trashless Utopia we were promised decades ago but advancements in avac could lead us to rethink how we dispose of our waste and the infrastructure behind it someone's got to take the time someone has to have the technology around here this can continue someone has to continue to put money into upgrades and produce positive things Pat lafa meat purveyors supplies thousands of restaurants from New York to Las Vegas it has the largest dry aging room in the world one family has run this business for over a century and Pat is the third generation owner right now there's well over $10 million of meet in here he brought in a whole new approach to the business selling high-end meat to both fancy restaurants but also to Burger chains like Shake Shack Pat's team produces 250,000 lb of meat every night it's kind of like um Jenga where you're moving one piece and another piece comes in it takes years to develop an army like we have their weapons butcher knives band saws and meat grinders so how does Pat lafita manage to supply everything from $3 Smash Burgers to $200 stakes and how did he turn a humble butcher shop into a $270 million meat Empire Pat only buys Prime and choice beat the highest USDA grades these Cuts have the most marbling which adds flavor so how does all this pricey steak get to kitchens chefs normally know what they want to order or what they need to order after that dinner service and then they really want the product delivered the next morning a few hours later that's why shifts here start around 6:00 p.m. and then it's a race against the clock some kitchens need these Stakes by the following morning the only way to work throughout the night is is to have cohesion as a former former military guy myself building that team it takes time many Stakes start in this dry aging room which holds 15,000 of Pat's finest cut it has to stay at 36° F and 80% humidity otherwise everything will spoil or freeze and Pat could lose Millions as the meat ages moisture evaporates and muscles break down but we know that the dry aging process is working when we see that the protein has sunk it in from the bone and the fat workers wheel the meat to the POR in section Master butchers go to work on everything from Tomahawk Stakes to New York strips slicing them exactly the way each restaurant wants Pat trained most of these butchers himself the ones you made this morning were beautiful all you here there really are no butcher schools or restaurants will ask me Pat where do you get your butchers from like we don't get our butchers we make our butchers they only need a few tools to get the job done in most people's hands you're going to see bony knives with this you could basically do the whole job um until you get to cutting the steak across and that's where you want a simitar knife and what makes this a butcher knife as opposed to a chef's knife we have a protective corner but certain Cuts require using a band saw it's ideal for slicing through bone or doing high volume orders as fast as possible and only Master butchers can operate them it's probably a good 2 and 1/2 years before they would even get to a fans saw next workers load everything onto trucks if a customer is local Pat's team can deliver within a few hours the Press Club Grill in New York City gets thousands of pounds of meat from lefa per week owner and Chef Franklin Becker showed us how he prepares a boneless ribeye yeah I try to season it fairly aggressively okay and uh let all that salt kind of penetrate into the pores of the meat and then I'm going on to an infrared Broiler this steak doesn't take long it's pretty quick in just 5 to 6 minutes you'll get a juicy medium rare so you see that fat starting to caramelize okay you let it rest then the meat's going to kind of reabsorb all those juices and when you slice it there's going to be nothing left really on the board that's when a steak is perfectly rested that's when you know that you've cooked it right one of the most legendary steak houses in New York City Peter Luger has been sourcing meat cuts from Leaf since 1998 Peter Luger has garnered its reputation as a New York City institution frankly due to a lot of hard work and I think it's starts with our attention to detail and selecting each piece of meat that comes into this restaurant we're really about letting the highest quality steak we can buy shine with just a little salt and a tiny bit of butter we cooked the steak to order and we send it out sizzling hot to the G that's it but Leafa doesn't just Supply fancy restaurants back in 2004 Pat bought the company's first Burger machine to make patties for a new fast casual chain that was about to open Shake Shack Pat created a special blend without trimmings or added fat for the new chain Shake Shack still uses Pats recipes today and lefa still supplies patties from more than a hundred of its locations every Burger starts on the main floor 2,000 lb of Angus beef are dumped onto conveyor belts machines spray them with diluted vinegar that kills potential germs other machines grind and mix the meat the ground meat goes into Patty forming machines which can make 200 different blends workers need to move fast the company pumps out over 200,000 Burgers a day guess pretty uh hectic and frustrating sometimes when it gets overload but um every single day is just a deep in challenge Mel's butcher box in tenly New Jersey is one of Pat's loyal customers owner Melanie landano orders up to 100 lb of burgers from him a day for the restaurant we use the original Pat laf Frita blend which is a short rib brisket blend for special events if a customer requests dry age brisket Burgers we get that some people request a $45 day dry age Burger we um anything I want Pat will make for us once we put it on the grill we leave it on the grill and a lot of people like to press on press on the meat then all the juices come out I what I do I flip it once I leave it and let it cook and then I hold I let it rest here on top of her daily customers Mel also Cooks burgers for four local schools on Monday morning alone she grills over 200 patties for students so today we're probably going to cook uh five or six cases in 1 hour so it's Burger paloa Mel also buys Leafa skirt steaks ribey cheese steaks and meatballs here's our Leaf meatballs this is going with this pen meatball just heating up this is a his grandfather's recipe and they're delicious I'm Italian so I don't use any other any other me Ball but patler freed to meatball if I have no time to make my own so Family Recipes are still an important part of leafa's Pat's great-grandfather opened a Brooklyn butcher shop in 1922 after moving the operation to Manhattan's growing meat packing District Pat's grandfather took over and started Pat Leaf meat purveyors Pat started learning the job as a child my favorite times were cutting meat with my grandfather father to my left and my dad to my right but Pat's father insisted his son try a different career first he didn't want me to work those hours um he didn't want me in that environment Pat spent 9 months working as a stock broker but then ditched that job to join the family business a decade later Pat would be named CEO and now my dad can't wait for my son to go off to college and come back and run the family business when Pat joined in 1994 the company had 44 restaurant customers now they have 1600 and are posting annual sales of $270 million we are several hundred times larger than we were in 2021 Pat opened this new $20 million facility to keep such a massive operation running Pat has to be more than a manager though he does everything he comes Works in production he works with us he goes on the table he goes to see customers he oversees everything it's something I love to do and I do a lot of my best thinking while I'm cutting meat um to me it's it's a relaxing time even after this much growth Pat thinks there's room for more this facility produces about 250,000 lbs of products a night and with the capacity to probably triple or quadruple that so we built it with the space to to be able to uh expand from there if you flew into JFK in the 9s getting something into the US was a lot easier but after 9/11 a conversation started about how to protect the country from dangerous foods drugs and people and US Customs and Border Protection as it's known today was formed you'll generally see two kinds of CBP officials at airports officers like Steve and agriculture Specialists like ginger their job is to find seize and Destroy millions of items each year that don't belong in the United States it's a big job and sometimes it requires a sidekick a side kick on four legs this is K9 Spike look Spike he is a 8-year-old Belgium alawa I've been his only hand from day one he's trained in Narcotics during the duration of our career probably sees over 400 different seizures CBP officials like Steve identify high-risk individuals trying to enter into the us as well as drugs and firearms and because these are such high stakes dogs like Spike are trained in a special way in what's called passive response meaning if they sniff out drugs they don't scratch they don't bark and they don't make a scene they sit and if they're right the dog gets rewarded his reward is actually this toy right here so he likes to play so Ain that right you you like to play you like to play yes you do yes you do let me see it let me see it here at the Port we've caught up to 16 keys of ecstasy recently narcotics are then seized and sent to be incinerated the incinerator location is kept a secret as a matter of National Security Now pretty much everyone knows that narcotics aren't allowed through US borders but actually drugs aren't the most commonly seized item at JFK food is when a regular traveler arrives in the US they're required to declare any food items they're bringing in or face up to $1,000 fine for the first offense these items aren't taken because agents want to eat your yummy Spanish ham or Caribbean mangoes it's because agents are responsible for protecting American agriculture from any foreign pests or diseases that could affect our livestock or crops and that's where agricultural Specialists like ginger come in everything gets destroyed to protect against that pest risk we are protecting the country's agricultural interests we're protecting against bioterrorism where someone could intentionally try to bring in items to wreak havoc in this country foreign bugs hitchhiking and Luggage have wreaked havoc in the US before Florida's orange and grapefruit Growers lost $2.9 billion from 2007 to 2014 thanks to the Asian citrus Sid and since being introduced into the Us in the 9s the Asian longhorn beetle has ravaged hardwood trees eradication efforts between 1997 and 2010 cost more than $373 million in our country we go into the grocery store and the food is always there we don't have to look at it for holes or check if it's got some disease on it it always looks great so we get kind of spoiled and we don't really understand the importance of of protecting that so it's crucial that even a single stowaway orange is found and confiscated but with 34 million annual International passengers to and from JFK going through each of those bags can seem pretty impossible for humans that is luckily they've got a Little Help from the Beagle Brigade this four-legged officer is biscuit and like Spike biscuit is trained in passive response but biscuits trained to sniff out food rather than drugs they actually learned they start out with five Target oders and then over the years he'll asan and they retire with sometimes like 150 oders that they know and Biscuit's pretty good at sniffing these beagles have an estimated 90% accuracy rate watching your dog sit on three grapes in a Samsonite hardside suitcase is just incredible scientists say their nose is a thousand times stronger than ours and they prove it every single day once biscuit sniffs out an item the passenger in question and their bags go to Ginger who will X-ray and search the luggage okay these are both your bags correct okay did you pack everything yourselves you pack your bags yourself okay Ginger unzips the bag and searches each one by hand and if she finds something that's not allowed it's seized and held in temporary bins this is very common from that region once you open it all up you have grape leaves these are HSE meat sausages this is another very good example of what we get very frequently especially in the springtime this is a plant that they're planning on bringing here to grow so anything for propagation has additional Inay requirements so this is two families worth from one flight JFK disposes of the Contraband food in one of two ways the grinder or the incinerator Ginger will bag up the seized items and label them based on their final destination so we're going to go walk this bin nice and full from those two passengers down to our Contraband room this is the room where illicit food meets its [Music] end this is our grinding machine this is what we'll generally use for fruits vegetables that kind of Commodities it is called the muffin monster but before Ginger can send a piece of fruit down the muffin monster she cuts it open squishes it and inspects it she's looking for evidence of diseases insertion points for insects and exit points for larv if she finds a little bug like this one she neutralizes the pest risk and sends it to the US Department of Agriculture for further investigation now it's back to the muffin monster 120 lbs of food are grinded up each day from arriving International passengers avocados mangoes and citrus are among the most common fruits that end up in the grinder we do get messy it's important to dispose of it properly I love to eat as much as everybody else I'm a big fan of food but I know the importance of making sure that what we seized because of established risks is disposed of properly to prevent it from causing problems so the next time you've got an orange tucked into your luggage declare it and let experts like ginger decide if it's em missible and leave the Serrano ham in Spain because Biscuit will find it [Music] this guitar might look like a real Gibson but it's not this is coming from China and wait it's NH Gibb son s o n not Su these are fake too Coach bag with a Michael Core zipper Oo we have Nike sneakers here they're a part of a huge counterfeit industry worth over a trillion dollars and since these fakes come through the mail Customs and Border Protection officers are tasked with seizing them in 2020 alone CBP seized over 26,000 counterfeit good shipments the knockoffs are getting better and better and more profitable for these counterfeits not only are these fake products dangerous for consumers they've had cadmium arsenic lead and cyanide inside makeup and it's disfigured people perfume has had horse urine in it profits of counterfeits are known to fund criminal activity including attacks and bombings people think it's a victimless crime oh what's the harm I'm just buying this pocketbook what could it do it does a lot because the problem is where the money is going and as everything is now sold online buying counterfeit Goods is getting easier but stopping them is much harder it's like whacka they come up you go after them they come down they go up again and here we have counterfeit watch that's Customs Officer Steve nethera he's America's first line of defense against counterfeits I've had many million dooll watch seizures we visited him at JFK to learn how he's spotting and stopping fakes all while the counterfeit Market is surging counterfeit goods are anything that infringes on a company's intellectual property rights or IPR think fake Air Jordans Rolexes or Louis Vuitton purses and because these products are trademarked counterfeiting them is illegal you can just be guaranteed that your product is going to get counterfeit it's just a matter of time half of the counterfeit Goods CBP seized in 2019 came to the mail from China followed by Hong Kong and Singapore before a package ever lands in the US CBP gathers Intelligence on the sender container and aircraft using this Intel and x-ray machines CBP Narrows down a million packages into the ones that'll get pulled for further inspection those suspicious packages will go straight to Steve he'll start by looking at the Box well I'm looking cuz I don't have my glasses on so I'm cheating the first when it comes in is the country of origin we Tong they're coming from France the watch is coming from Switzerland when it's coming from China being that's your number one red flag then you look at the dilapidated boxes then he'll open up the package and this is from a familiar sender that sends counterfeit items possibly Footwear o we have Nike sneakers here this is obviously to save space but this is not traditional of the manufacturer to crush all these items we try and take care when we open it up so that if it is some that's legitimate we'll tape it up and put it back the way it originally was but that's rare more than likely what he finds is fake the most common counterfeited handbag is Louis Baton the most counterfeited sneaker is Nike Air Jordans here we have a Rolex watch but how does he know their counterfeits well Brands train Steve on the telltale signs to spot a fake they'll sometimes send a kit and the kit will include a genuine product it will include kind of a hit list as to what to look for most of the hit list is kept top secret to protect the brand against counterfitters but Steve could share a few things Rolex would never put their watches in little Ziploc bags they don't put these inside it the silica gel Rolex does not send to individuals in the United States they only sent to their retail stores I have another package here this one's coming from Thailand we have an assortment of items here we have Chanel eyewear we have Gucci eyewear watch it is jewelry Louis Vuitton pouch a high-end manufacturers like this never Co mingle their products in other words a Gucci inside of a Fendi or a Louis Vuitton these people will stuff watches a wallet inside a handbag they don't put any of this in it the filler inside it and their items wouldn't come in bubble wrap like this some of the counterfeits are obvious here we have a Burberry coat and it says burbelly mistakenly on the button but some aren't as easy to spot the quality is getting better sometimes the factories especially in China it's the same Factory that's making the good for the brand owner is also making the counterfeits and that's a real problem for the luxury brand owners sometimes the brands themselves can't even tell the difference some of the counterfeits are that good I've never seen one like this before so of course I'm going to be delicate with it the packaging and the brand doesn't look like the normal counterfeit that we normally see it's coming from Israel what is the country of manufacturer for Paul Reed Smith Soul South Korea Israel is not a manufacturer there are a lot of red flags it's like half and half it's got model code serial number UPC number but for the country that it's coming from is the thing that's throwing me off so I'm going to put it over here on hold and it'll be determined later on but in order for Steve to seize anything there has to be a trademark on that product what we got in here shirts yes it's all Suzuki shirts Suzuki has motorcycle and car trademark but not on apparel so this will end up being released but whether it's a copycat of a product that's trademarked or not counterfeits can be dangerous that fake makeup well it can cause rashes swellings and burns they've had cadmium orenic lead and cyanide inside makeup and it's disfigured people cadmium is in rechargeable batteries and control rods in nuclear reactors perfume they've Laboratory test has shown there's been horse urine in it Steve says fake safety equipment is even more alarming when it comes to automotive parts that's a very big danger spark plugs which can cause the engine to go on fire oil filters that cause instant damage to the engine airbags are a big thing that's something that you may not necessarily realizes something to even consider until you need that airbag and it doesn't go off in the protect way that it should counterfeit manufacturers have no regard to health or safety or who they heard along the way all they're concerned about is the bottom line many Studies have shown that counterfeiting is one way criminal organizations fund themselves the accused group in the 2004 Madrid train bombing sold fake CDs to partially Finance their attacks for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing co- conspirators in that sold counterfeit t-shirts on Broadway to fund that the two brothers behind the 2015 attack on the Charlie hebo publication that killed 12 people and injured 11 they funded their weapons partly through counterfeit Nike sneakers and sometimes it's hard to make that connection between that purse you might have bought on the street corner and organized crime activity but this activity that seems to be going under the radar can be lucrative for criminals and it's because it's high profit and low risk so when Steve finds a counterfeit good he seizes it then he figures out the items MSRP using the Brand's website and cbp's internal database this one here would be about $1,000 that's the MSRP what the manufacturer would be losing had this been genuine these are generally on the internet for about $200 in 2020 CBP seized over 26,000 packages for intellectual property rights violations that's a total value of over a billion dollar but it's not just the manufacturer profits that take a hit their reputations do when a buyer doesn't know they've bought a knockoff and it falls apart it's the real company that customer blames and over time consumer's trust in the brand is eroded Steve does all the paperwork for every seized package then he stores the goods here we have a post Gone full of seizur so it's going to go into the storage room in the end all these products will be destroyed they're incinerated at a top secret location so what happens to the counterfitters for one Homeland security investigations can decide to open up a case but Steve says that doesn't happen often the first problem HSI agents there's only so many of them they're going to deal with the most important thing which is narcotics all the fenel and the cocaine that coming that are killing people that is a top priority and it should be and the second problem the nature of counterfeiting is that these Bad actors operate without respect for borders it's often times very difficult to actually get an individual because they're not located in the us American authorities don't have jurisdiction in China where a lot of counterfeits are made so resting counterfitters within the US is hard in 2020 Homeland Security investigations arrested 203 people for counterfeiting of those just 93 were convicted Diane says a more successful tactic is going after counterfitters online many sell their copycat products on platforms like Amazon Alibaba and eBay to fight The Fakes online retailers have launched anti-counterfeiting measures l these marketplaces are really working with brand owners we do not want to be a place where a customer purchases an item that ultimately could impact their health and safety Amazon's program is called project zero when companies register for Amazon they give information on their brands trademarks and listings using this data Amazon's algorithm scans 5 billion products a day for signs of counterfeiting it looks for things like Blurry product photos copycat product descriptions payment information we look at price point we look at reviews and if a listing turns out to be a counterfeit Amazon will suspend the account in 2019 Amazon blocked 6 billion suspected bad listings on its site we might suspend funds we might quarantine inventory then Amazon's new counterfit crimes unit takes over formed in 2020 the unit's made up of former FBI Homeland Security agents and federal prosecutors like kibaru whenever a counterfeit is identified karo's team will send a packet of information to law enforcement this information can consist of IP addresses banking information email addresses that help us identify the person behind the computer and to skirt the jurisdiction problem the unit sends data to agencies all over the world to Euro Canadian law enforcement we partner and work with law enforcement on the ground in China local law enforcement does react when a brand owner comes to them and wants to do a raid and I've been involved in quite a few of them where they're really successful and we can then decide whether we want to pursue a civil suit or if we want to pursue a criminal enforcement action against them but even if counterfitters are caught sentences tend to be low for counterfeiting offenders could face 10 years in prison compare that to say drug trafficking where punishment can range from 20 years to life in prison all the way up to a death sentence and counterfeits are getting creative and making their products seem legitimate from creating fake Amazon listings to flooding the US trademark office with phony applications it is frustrating that it doesn't stop that every day there's new infringements that we uncover for clients and it's all led to a surging industry for counterfeits today it makes up 3.3% of global trade when counterfeits are being sold often times taxes aren't being paid for those goods and they in turn can impact economies as well by 2022 the counterfeits industry is expected to suck $4.2 trillion from the global economy and it could endanger over 5 million legitimate jobs because we're dealing with a moving Target it's a challenging crime problem to address it grows every day and it's because of consumer demand people need to be educated more about the dangers and the old thing if it seems too good to be true it probably is in Brooklyn Grimaldi's Pizza goes through 200 lbs of mozzarella cheese a day to feed hungry New Yorkers at 9 in the morning Tony and his team get started making a 33-year-old dough recipe the mixer is loaded with olive oil New York C tap water activated yeast and 50 lb of high gluten flour so we have it preset for 5 minutes it's on a low spin cycle okay and what we do is we sprinkle salt on top of our flour 5 minutes later we have our famous dough recipe once mixed the dough needs to be cut weighed and shaped into bowls within 30 minutes so it doesn't rise for this Tony relies on the most experienced pizza yolas at Grimaldi they're cutting each and everything to the same size every day it's almost like muscle memory at this point where the scale is not even needed you know they know what they're doing and it's almost like a healthy competition down here to race like let's go come on keep out with me I'm rolling you got to cut faster let's go another skill that's hard to master is rolling the perfect dough Bowl so we're rolling the dough and we're making sure that it's a smooth outer layer as well as making sure that there's no air inside so for example you know if you're rolling it and you're just going to meatball it and you're just going to put it like this down it's going to rise and it's going to thin out the middle and then the pizza when you pick it up that's when it flops down so Gale is known for a nice hard layer crust that is the texture it's the base it's the most important thing to the the pizza it's you know the foundation to the house no no Foundation no pizza this batch of dough is enough to make 65 to 75 pizzas which is just a fraction of what will be needed for the day once all of the trays are filled they're taken across the hole to these fridges so this is only the dough that was made last night okay so this is getting ready for our first few hours in galdi and then we'll start fresh prob go through the first batch that we made today and then well as another eight or nine for the night shift in 2011 grimal is moved into its current location the double story Palazo building on number one Front Street was originally built to be Brooklyn's first safety deposit company now Grimaldi's fridges sit in the same place as the old vaults so I think that's really cool that we made them into uh our own vaults so basically it protects our gold and this is our gold right [Music] here next is time to make the sauce large cans of sarano tomatoes are poured into buckets topped with sugar and Blended for us we use a one-day shelf life so we're just trying to keep it marinating for a few hours if not a full day and it's going right onto our pizza so we like to keep it as fresh as possible it's nice thick and imported Tomatoes Galis goes through about 700 quarts of tomatoes every week or roughly 6624 L upstairs 200 mozzarella bowls are cut into thin strips a process that's gone unchanged since opening the galdi cheese is very special it's made only for galdi so nowhere else in the world can get our flavor profile that we're doing on our mozzarella it is a low moisture low sodium UV dried fresh mozzarella so it can withstand the high intense heat of our oven and be cooked and melt to perfection in a short amount of time by the end of the week grimaldis will hand slice around 2,000 lb of mozzarella an hour before opening grimaldis restocks its Co so they can relight the oven okay so right now he's throwing 40 lb bags of anite coal into the bottom of our oven choot right over here so we keep about anywhere from 10 to 12 bags down there at a time and what we're doing is for at least a day or more we try and dry out our coal to make sure that it's burning a little cleaner easier it's not popping from the inside you know on top of pizzas Etc as it starts to heat up it makes our stoking process and our oven heat up a little bit quicker too the pizzeria keeps Embers in The Brick Oven overnight so it stays warm so right now we have a grate inside of our oven it's holding our col up but he's right now flipping it and and getting rid of all the old coal the reason why we don't clean it out at night time because we want to make sure that it stays warm overnight because it's going to take too many hours to heat up our floor when the charcoal ignites the team begins shoveling 200 lb of coal into the side of the oven compared to vood IDE cold Burns longer hotter and with less smoke you can't get a gas oven a wood oven up to 1,000° the way week can so we're able to get a different not only flavor profile from the coal but we're also getting a different profile from the Heat and intensity that that pizza is going [Music] under when the doors open at 11:30 a.m. it's all hands on deck to fill orders to be an official Grimaldi pie it needs to be made a certain way andlike most pizzerias grimaldis built its pizza cheese first slices of mozzarella are evenly placed around the dough and the gaps are then filled with sauce so when it melts together you're seeing a little bit of B but you're also getting a bite of not too much sauce not too much cheese so that's what we're looking for with gal specialty toppings range from hand pinched Italian sausage to Finly sliced pruto and AR chokes and most pies are finished off with a sprinkling of the grimaldis Romano blend extra virgin olive oil and a few pieces of fresh basil to help streamline the cooking process grimaldis uses a two shelf system so we have a pre-stretch and then a stretching and cheese section on this side we're pre-stretching cheese in throwing them on the first shelf right here everyone standing on this side is a Topper so that means they're putting on the toppings the sauce on they're finishing it off with the olive oil the basil and then finishing it off by putting it on the top shelf the top shelf is so the oven guy knows that they're ready to go in the oven working a cold oven takes years of experience to master from memorizing cook times to keeping a consistent heat it's not easy to make a perfect pie so what we're doing is we're loading them in we're closing the door right away we're giving it a pop of heat to the bottom of the pizza so we can actually move it around without ripping it or anything like that what's rare about Brooklyn is that we use this copper stick right here you know it's very important with this high heat if you're using a wooden stick they're just breaking and wearing and tearing drying out non-stop especially when you're picking up a heavy pizza so you can see it's only been about 60 seconds and they're already rising up so basically I'm making sure that I can pick them up give them a small Spin and then I'm actually just moving them into position right here the high heat means that the pizzas only need a few minutes to cook water in the dough evaporates quickly creating air bubbles and leaving behind a light Airy texture in the crust while charcoal gives the pizza a charred slightly Smoky flavor and a crunchy texture outside people begin queuing and waiting up to an hour to get a table and 16 minutes after opening the first and third stories of the restaurant are practically full on the dining floor you'll find servers with over 20 years of experience and a good sense of humor wait I thought that was you Mommy I'm hungry boom you got it Papa while grimaldis has an established clientele a vast majority of its business comes from tour groups since 2005 Tony muya who runs Pizza tours has been coming to Showcase Grimaldi pizza so if I can describe Grimaldi in three words um it would probably be legendary authentic and beloved cuz people love galdi the key to making a great pizza is Passion it's love you take dough cheese or sauce by itself it's just simple objects but when you're building a pizza it's a piece of art so for us and for myself it's a passion and love I put into every Pizza that makes it special the iconic Rockefeller tree didn't come from a Christmas tree farm it came from someone's backyard here in Onana New York this year's tree is an 80-year-old Norway spruce found in Al Dick's yard tree 75 ft tall 45 ft wide and about 11 tons I found this tree back in 2016 the head Gardener for roell Center happened to be riding down the road and he saw the tree Eric stopped by Al's General Store to see if Al and his family would donate their tree to Rockefeller Center he asked me if you we could do it we said sure but they had to wait a few years it wasn't tall enough when they wasn't tall enough had rolling I've been looking at it for a couple years I watered it I had it over a couple years and then this summer when I came by it just looked great and it looked perfect and it was the year to take it when the spruce was unveiled as the 2023 the Rockefeller team got to work protecting and preparing it we had a 24-hour day guard Eric especially he's been here every day there been like family we're going to miss them being outside every day but getting this massive Spruce to the center of Manhattan is no easy [Music] task first it had to come out of the ground we came up and we started tying it it took us all the way to Saturday afternoon Eric hired a crew of local workers to tie up the branches that's to make sure they're secure through the cutting and the drive and then the crane came and we built the crane and put the counterweights on it so that it could hold the tree the crane is already attached to the tree when the workers begin cutting Eric and his team have private property and bystanders to think [Music] about it takes only a few minutes to saw through the mass trunk leaving the giant tree hanging in the air now we moved it over to the truck the tree is laid on its side on that 115t long trailer and strapped into place the tree is going to take a nice little trip down to New York City often the most complicated part is getting it right from the property where it is onto the highway what is normally a 3 and 1 half hour drive takes up to 3 days with a 75t tree you don't want to get the rockfeller Center Christmas tree stuck in traffic and then of course the city of New York is always tremendously helpful with us in terms of closing the streets and making sure that we're able to have a smooth arrival into the city normally the tree arrives to Big crowds but this year because of covid-19 it pulled up to an empty Rockefeller Center we like to think that tree arrival day is the start of the holiday season officially in New York and certainly this has been a year unlike any other so it felt all the more important to us to continue those Traditions carefully it's lifted off the truck then tilted right side up and slid into the sturdy tree stand in the middle of Rockefeller Center as if putting up the tree in Rockefeller Plaza is not enough crew is working on the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree got a little surprise they found a tiny owl this year workers found a little owl hidden inside the tree and the bird went viral as people guessed it hitch to ride all the way from upstate New York he was brought safely to a shelter and named appropriately Rockefeller Rocky for short also blowing up the internet the fact that the tree looked a little bare on arrival but what might look like a scrawny tree now got a big facelift this is the extension to make it nice and full over the next couple of weeks the tree was surrounded in scaffolding as the tree's branches settled and fluffed out it's been reported workers also attached Branch extensions to make the tree appear Fuller we stick a hole in the tree put the branch back in boom wi it in boom like like a weave like a weave it's just like a weave then they draped 50,000 LED lights around it and topped it with a 900 lb Swarovski Crystal star and finally on December 2nd the Rockefeller Christmas tree is lit up this year through a virtual ceremony the tree is always real come you can smell it you can see it this year we probably won't let you touch it thanks to uh to co but I I can assure you it is a very real tree we have the pine cones to Pro it and when it's all over we take the lumber when it is done and we turn it we donate to Habitat for Humanity and it turns into homes for the future
