Later, the tree was perched atop the four-story "Crystal Bridge" that connected the original Rich's department store with a new building addition on the opposite side of Forsyth Street.

It was visible for decades, until Rich's downtown store closed in mid-1991 and the tree was moved to a smaller, less-imposing spot in Underground Atlanta.

From there it was later moved to Lenox Square mall, but neither location provided as spectacular a view of the tree as when it stood on the Crystal Bridge.

After years of contraction, Federated closed Rich's main downtown store in the 1990s and moved the tree to nearby Underground Atlanta.

In 2000, the tree was relocated once again to the rooftop of Rich's Lenox Square mall store, in the Buckhead (uptown) community, located north of the downtown and the midtown districts.

It also had a huge lighted tree topper seven feet (two meters) in diameter, previously a snowflake, and now a color-changing LED star since becoming Macy's.

For 2009, it also had 125 snowflake ornaments and 125 metallic red Macy's stars, similar to the décor used inside its stores for the Christmas shopping season.

The Pink Pig was an amusement park ride of sorts that was a miniature suspended monorail sized for children.

[10] During the time the Great Tree was at the downtown Rich's store, it was undeniably the biggest Christmas-time attraction in the southeastern United States.

Parents from around the South brought their children to downtown Atlanta expressly to experience this attraction and have their picture taken with the Rich's store Santa Claus.

The ride inspired the 2004 book I Rode the Pink Pig: Atlanta's Favorite Christmas Tradition (ISBN 1588180999).

For years the ceremony had been held from 7:00 to 8:00 PM, but for 2013 it was moved an hour earlier due to the store opening.

Originally, four choirs sang from the north face of the Crystal Bridge, which connected all but the lower two levels of the downtown Rich's over Forsyth Street.

Faux stained glass panels (still used by Macy's) were put in the bridge's windows on either side (left and right) of each choir, giving the ceremony an almost church-like effect.

Street lights were turned off in the area below so there was no glare for the thousands of spectators that gathered every year regardless of the weather.

The host/storyteller of those earlier days was Bob van Camp of WSB Atlanta radio and television, and once the organist at the Fox Theatre.

The ceremony, in those days, was based on the reading of the traditional birth of Christ, i.e. the "Christmas Story", unlike today's more generic "holiday" themes and music.

Beginning in 2015 the lighting of Macy's Great Tree, that year the "68th edition of the Great Tree", was changed from Thanksgiving night to the Sunday before Thanksgiving, at 7:00PM [12] This returned the ceremony to its traditional time, well after sunset at the western edge of the Eastern time zone.

That portion of the store sustained extensive water damage due to broken fire sprinkler pipes.