December 8, 2025

The Reindeer Christmas at Rockefeller Center in 1941

How Rockefeller Center’s 1941 holiday display added four reindeer to the plaza, a tiny wartime moment New Yorkers never forgot.

Most people know the story of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree -- the towering spruce, the lights, the crowds. Fewer know that one wartime December, the plaza hosted a much more unexpected holiday display: four live reindeer.

It was December 1941, just five days after Pearl Harbor. The country was anxious and unsure of what came next. And then, in the middle of Manhattan, beside Prometheus and the ice rink, stood a small herd of reindeer, a display that felt both surreal and comforting, a moment of softness before wartime reality fully set in.

Technically, they weren’t reindeer at all but woodland caribou, a detail politely ignored in favor of holiday magic. Reindeer simply sounded more festive, and New Yorkers embraced the illusion without hesitation.

Getting them into the plaza was its own spectacle. Brought in by the New York Zoological Society, the animals arrived by truck and were lowered by crane into the sunken skating rink level. There, two large wooden pens waited beside the Prometheus statue, with tan bark floors, peat moss carpets, and small evergreen shelters that made the whole setup feel rustic, theatrical, almost like a stage set for a winter tale.

A small sign hung from the railing: “Please don’t feed our reindeer. Santa Claus wouldn’t like it.”

People adored them. Office workers paused on their way to lunch. Families made special trips to see them. For a few winter weeks, the animals became part of Manhattan’s holiday landscape, something gentle and alive at a time when the world felt newly precarious.

The reindeer stayed through Christmas. After the New Year, on January 2, 1942, they were moved to the Bronx Zoo, where keepers prepared a special reindeer range east of the Primate House. It's the first time the zoo had housed reindeer since 1907.

And then came an unexpected coda. In April 1942, one of the does gave birth to a calf, an 18-inch-tall baby reindeer the zoo named Cupid. The brief Rockefeller Center herd had left behind a tiny ambassador of the season.

It’s a small, charming footnote in New York’s Christmas history, a reminder that even in uncertain times, cities find ways to create moments of wonder.

For one strange and memorable season, Rockefeller Center shared its holiday spotlight with a borrowed herd of reindeer. And New Yorkers never forgot the sight.

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