David Stess 
Our Local Christmas Tree Seller

By Ede Rothaus

DAVID STESS, longtime Morton Street resident, may be the only local Manhattan Christmas tree vendor who works in his own neighborhood at his stand on Hudson Street in the West Village. Photo by Ede Rothaus.

Some of the best things that happen in New York at this time of year right after Thanksgiving are the Christmas tree stands that begin popping up and how the air — however briefly — is filled with the scent of pine, fir, and balsam. And that’s when David Stess starts building his stand on Hudson Street between St Luke’s Place and Carmine Street. And finally after 15 years, we had a chance to sit down and speak together for the first time — not at the stand in snatches, in the cold, interrupted by a flow of potential customers, but rather for an extended time in a warm West Village apartment.

I began by asking David how long he had lived in the neighborhood.
DS: My first apartment was at Hudson and Charles Streets in 1986. I moved to my Morton Street apartment in 1989.
VV: How long have you been selling Christmas trees.?
DS: Probably about 15 years.
VV: Why?
DS: It fit with my random lifestyle. Other than after college to save money to go to Europe and travel around on my bicycle, I worked as a bank teller for nine months, I’ve never had any sort of a real job. I worked in the film world here for 20 years and done all this farm work in New England where I’ve photographed. I’ve been around apple trees and wild blueberry farms and vegetable farms — ‘farm farms’ — no animals.
I’ve lived a very unconventional life and I knew people who came down here from Maine for 25 years and sold Christmas trees. Then I found this outfit on Craig’s List and the rest is history. I started to work for them and it was a disaster. Eventually I found Soho Trees when I started to seriously look for this work. I could handle the physicality of it and the hours.
VV: And the cold?
DS: It’s funny I can handle the cold much better now. I grew up in Miami. I moved to New York and I started spending my summers and falls in New England. You learn to toughen up and you learn how to dress for it. So I acclimated.
David works with Soho Trees and they each are uncompromising about the quality of the ones they sell. Everything is “late cut” — cut 12 to 24 hours right before they are loaded on a truck and driven to New York as quickly as possible rather than weeks before and kept in storage. He’s proud that not one of the more than the thousand plus trees he sold last year was returned. He finds that post-pandemic there is a trend — people are buying their trees earlier and enjoying them longer.
Unlike many other companies, Soho Trees buys from all points of the compass, bringing in rare trees from the Pacific Northwest. Noble, Nordmann and Grand firs from Oregon, Frasier firs from North Carolina and Quebec and Canadian balsams from Nova Scotia. David thinks balsams have the best smell but don’t hold their needles quite as long as the Frasier. When asked if he has a ‘best seller’ — it’s the Frasier Fir. As to size — there isn’t a clear favorite though he has seen a definite uptick in large tree sales — something he attributes to the recent construction of large apartments along and near the waterfront.
VV: When do you close up?
DS: Generally Christmas Eve Day.
VV: Are you planning to go to Brighton Beach for “Russian Christmas?” Who decides that?
DS: The big bosses. We don’t know yet. It depends on a lot of factors — existing inventory, availability of additional trees, weather.
VV: Do you think you are the only local person who sells in their neighborhood?
DS: In Manhattan probably. I’m probably one of the very few. In the outer boroughs it’s much more common.
VV: Do you want to talk a little bit about your other work? Both photography and agriculture?
DS: Sure. I’ve done photography and art for 30 some years. And that’s why I’ve done these unconventional jobs so I have time to do my art. I’m in the collection of some museums and I’m beginning to prepare for a Spring 2025 one-man exhibition at a well-known university in New England
VV: How would you describe your photographic work?
DS: I still shoot film and a lot of it is documentary in nature. I’ve always tried to live what I’m photographing. That’s what I’ve done from the beginning. So I’m living it, participating in it and giving back.
I was looking for a long-term documentary project that I could weave into my life. To participate in it. To get to know people intimately and have them know me on a much deeper level. And I’ve done that.
I’ve also been able to capture a world that’s disappeared. All the changes in American agriculture over the last 125 years happened in Maine. From when I started 25 to 30 years ago, from being what was probably the last truly local harvest in America, to the development of a much bigger agro business. The bringing in of professional Hispanic migrant labor to the mechanization of the harvest and the physical changing of the land. There are no longer hand workers. It had all been done by hand. Now 99 percent is done by machine. There were more than 10,000 people harvesting blueberries in Down East Maine. Thousands and thousands of workers. Now there are hundreds.
VV: I understand you work closely with the Passamaquoddy Tribe
DS: I’m on an all Native American crew for a Native American company. The only ‘Anglo’ / non-Native on the crew for the Passamaquoddy Wild Blueberry Company in Washington County, Maine.
VV: How long have you worked the blueberry harvest?
DS: Since 1988.
VV: How do you get paid for the berries you pick?
DS: By the box—the 25-pound box
VV: I never get tired of the taste of wild blueberries.
DS: Me too.