The Madison Square tree through the years. (MSP Conservancy)

The season of light takes on special meaning in a city as bright as New York. It all starts with the lighting of the world's most famous Christmas tree at Rock Center and closes with the ball drop in the fleshpit of Times Square on New Years.

The tree in Madison Square Park may be overlooked, with all the storefronts to be taken in, holiday fares to wade through and ice rinks popping up all over, but it was here that the season of light arguably began 100 years ago. That is when the first public tree lighting ceremony ever took place, not just in New York, but in the country, based on research by the Madison Square Park Conservancy.

"We've been waiting for this moment a long time," said Debra Landau, director of the conservancy.

The park group points to numerous resources confirming the centennial, and its apparent first-in-the-nation status. There is a mention in the 1912 annual Parks Department report, on a list of notable events, right between the Oct. 16 "Celebration at the Gant Tulip tree in Inwood Park" and the Dec. 27 carnival at something called Wendel's Assembly Rooms on West 44th Street. Miriam Berman cites this as the nation's first public tree lighting in her book Madison Square, as does the Times, which took special note of the event on its front page the day of, Dec. 24, 1912. “Star of Bethlehem First Light on Tree,” reads the headline, and the story opens,

Let all the people who visit the big Christmas tree in Madison Square Park to-night watch for the appearance of the Star of the East--the Star of Bethlehem. With the first call of the trumpets it will appear, faintly shining, at the top of the tree. As the sound of the “Parsifal Call” continues, with the crescendo, the star will gradually increase in radiance until it shines brilliantly, and then the entire tree will blossom luminously with many colored lights.

So all those garish displays in Bay Ridge and throughout the nation’s other suburbias, basically we have this lighting to thank.

But it should come as no surprise that this was such a remarkable occasion, this being not only a celebration of the holidays but of light itself. Few New Yorkers yet had the succor of electrical illumination at home, and some sources say Thomas Edison was directly involved in the lighting of the first Madison Square Park tree.

Ms. Landau said it is easy to see why this location had been selected. "We pride ourselves on being home to a lot of firsts," she said, including the city's tallest buildings (Flatiron and MetLife buildings, for a time), biggest sports venues (the original Madison Square Gardens) earliest hotels (The Fifth Avenue, most notably) and starting point for military marches, which departed from the old Dewey Arch, the predecessor to Washington's, a temporary structure often assembled at 21st Street and Fifth Avenue for such affairs. "The park used to be the heart of the city," Ms. Landau added.

And  even if it is no longer, if the this tree has been eclipsed by the Rockefellers, who celebrated their 80th tree lighting this year, Ms. Landau sees that as fitting as well. “It shows the natural progression of the city northward,” she said.

The tree lighting begins today at 4:30, with a special ceremony marking the centennial. As usual, the New York Life choir will be on caroling duties, reprising the same role the volunteer singers have for years.

"When the band reaches its final number everyone is asked to join in the singing of 'My Country 'Tis of Thee,'" the Times noted 100 years ago. While the tree lighting will be the same this year, the program, thankfully, will not. Instead, the conservancy has booked Audra Rox. "It's hip caroling in hip clothing," Ms. Landau said.

If only Shake Shack was carrying an Egg Nog shake. Unfotunately, that custard was on the menu yesterday, not today.

I'm about to get archival on your ... (Wikimedia Commons)

Yesterday a room of sharply dressed archivists, librarians and book conservators burst into laughter at a joke about mildew. They’re a funny bunch, these keepers of our national record, excited by different things than you and I. When they mention the billions of records, of which only a sliver has been digitized, currently stored in limestone caves in Lenexa, Kan., their eyes light up like deep-sea explorers contemplating the ocean. They all have stories to tell.

Stories like the time they found a trove of Walt Whitman documents written while he was a clerk in the Attorney General's office. They were forgotten documents, which were only identified by a scholar who recognized the handwriting and made the connection. Or the photo unearthed of FDR standing beneath the newly laid keel of the USS Arizona in 1913, while the then-secretary of the navy was touring the Brooklyn Navy Yards. The same ship, of course, whose destruction in Pearl Harbor 28 years later would lead to arguably FDR’s most famous speech, and with it a declaration of war. As with any explorers, when they talk about the often serendipitous thrill of discovery, their enthusiasm is infectious.

“We guide people on the fun experience of doing research,” said Dorothy Dougherty, arching one eyebrow. The public programs director for the National Archives' New York City branch, Ms. Dougherty was guiding The Observer through a tour of the U.S. record keeper's new home downtown, inside the Alexander Hamilton Customs House on Bowling Green.

Downstairs, curators have put on an exhibit titled The World's Port, highlighting the various documents and records of New York Harbor. Among the notable pieces are manifest lists drawn up and signed by Herman Melville in 1867 when he was a clerk at the customs house. The exhibition is meant as an homage to the building that had taken in the archives as much as it is to the historical documents housed within it.

It’s easy to make any number of ill-conceived and off-the-cuff comments about youth and the digital world. That in this internet-addled age of instant gratification, an institution like the National Archives might seem archaic. An agency that can only offer excitement through the careful, and often tedious, task of sorting physical documents. Or, as we like to say now, data-mining.

But that wouldn't be true. According to a Pew Research Center poll released on Monday, nearly 60 percent of Americans between 16 to 29 frequented a library, and not just to surf the web: to conduct research, borrow prints and to read magazines and newspapers. Call it the Millennial Paradox. Somehow the more digitized our worlds become, the more we crave the physical connection to an object that exists in our hands.

It’s this connection that the National Archives only hopes to foster through its various programs. “The mission of the National Archives,” said David Ferriero, archivist of the United States, “is to ensure that the records of the country are available for the American public to hold the government accountable for their actions. To learn how decisions were made, to explore their family history and the history of the country through those documents.”

Formerly located on desolate Varick Street, the new offices of the National Archives in New York are located on the second floor of the customs house, with locals and out-of-towners bustling about outside between work and play, between the ferry, the Battery and the canyons of Wall Street. The new space just happens to be the same office where Melville worked 145 years ago, as one of the archive's researchers recently discovered.

“There’s no filter here,” said Mr. Ferriero, sitting in the newly refurbished research library, “It’s the high points and the low points of our government history. We only try to provide context whereby we can encourage the public to discover the past for themselves.”

It had been a tough week for the storied Hell's Kitchen grocery, which has occupied the same stretch of Ninth Avenue since 1893. The trouble began when The Wall Street Journal reported that Sal Dell'Orto, Seline's father, had put the building on the market. The headline, "Eatery Closes After Decades-Long Family Spat," seemed a mite premature.

"We're not closing!" Ms. Dell'Orto barked. "No one said that to that idiot reporter!"

A spokesperson from the Wall Street Journal responded: "While not the best [headline] we've ever written, it's meant to convey the process of closing rather than the moment of closure." Capisce? 

As to the family dispute, the long-running saga pits Sal Dell'Orto against his brother James, who owns a competing sandwich shop, Manganaro's Hero-Boy, right next door. The branches of the family are not on speaking terms.

The ongoing battle has taken its toll on Ms. Dell'Orto, who has developed a reputation for ill-tempered service. "That's one of my biggest regrets, being angry all the time," she said. "People call me all sorts of names. If you went on Yelp, you'd have a heart attack."

As she spoke, her eyes welled with tears.

"I alienated a lot of people," she continued, "I've said mean things. I'm not an angel, but I'm better than that. That's why I'm crying. I can't tell you how many nights I didn't sleep over something I said to someone."

Asked whether she worries that her relatives next door are gloating over the Grosseria's misfortune, Ms. Dell'Orto, who's been reading up on the Borgias lately, replied, "It's in the genes! Italians all have the jealousy and gloating and 'I'm gonna fuck you' gene. What are you?"

"Jewish," we said.

"Oh, so you know."

Ms. Dell'Orto is ambivalent about the idea of closing the shop. On one hand she said, "People don't want this food. They don't. They want pan-Asian fusion food."

Then again, she's not ready to quit just yet. "Why not? Because it's a hundred and twenty fucking years old and it's beautiful," she said, gesturing toward the ancient shelves stacked with cans of roasted peppers.

So for now, Ms. Dell'Orto made it clear, Manganaro's Grosseria is open for business.

After her experience with the Wall Street Journal, however, she has had it with newspapers. She'll stick with radio, thanks. "I listen to both sides, give 'em both the finger and move on."

agell [at] observer.com | @aarongell

But what about the characters and events you may not have heard about before? To accompany this week's real estate story on the famed bohemian landmark, The Observer takes a look at some Chelsea Hotel lore you may have missed out on.

Slideshow: The Secret History of the Chelsea Hotel.

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234