This Queens native runs some of the largest Christmas tree stands in New York City

For the past 38 years “Greg’s Trees” has been providing New Yorkers with Christmas trees. College Point, Queens native Greg Walsh started selling trees from a small stand on the street corner in Brooklyn. Now, he runs some of the largest tree stands in New York City.

“I love doing it,” Walsh said. “I love meeting the families and the kids coming in, they are so excited. We try to make every sale a fun experience and we work hard for it.”

Walsh’s five unique stands, located throughout the city, provide much more than Christmas trees. His stands feature crafts, hand-painted Christmas cut-outs for photo-ops, sleds, wooden reindeer, visits from Santa and holiday markets with custom wreaths, decorations, centerpieces, ornaments, lights and tree toppers.

“Nobody’s got what we’ve got in New York,” said Eric Kang, one of Walsh’s crew members who helps manage the tree stands and sell trees.

But before Walsh started selling trees in the winter, he was selling fruit at 71st and Broadway in the middle of the summer.

19-year-old Walsh started selling fruit over the summer after his freshman year at the State University of New York at New Paltz. When the summer was over, he went back to school for one semester, before dropping out 25 credits into his business degree.

He sold fruit full-time for the next 12 years.

The heat rising off the city streets during the Manhattan summer pushes most people inside. But not Walsh. He didn’t mind the heat or waking up before dawn to unload the trucks of fruit.

“Not a minute of that entire 12 years did I wish the day was quicker,” Walsh said. “I wished that it was longer. I enjoyed every minute of it, and it was brutal work.”

Three years into selling fruit in the summer and pumpkins in the fall, Walsh decided to sell Christmas trees come November.

During that first season, in 1983, Walsh sold trees with his partners from two “winky dinky little stands” in Brooklyn and Queens, he said. But just four years later, they were running eight stands. In 1995 Walsh went back to school to become a school teacher and taught special education classes to 18 and 19 yearolds. For ten years he only ran one stand, but he never stopped selling trees.

This year, Walsh has a new stand at Domino Park in Williamsburg where 2,000 trees will fill the parking lot by Friday, making it one of Walsh’s largest tree stands ever. On December 5, there will be a tree lighting of a 20-foot tree and visits from Santa and other holiday characters.

“We’re doing more than we’ve ever done, and I think people are going to like it,” Walsh said. “We have great trees, and it’s really going to be something special.”