New Yorkers are set to experience “Manhattanhenge” for the second time this year, and Friday, July 12 and Saturday, July 13 are the perfect days to get outside at sunset and capture the magical moment, when the sun will only set on the lattice pattern between the skyscrapers, no matter which street you’re looking at from east or west Manhattan.
The biennial event’s nickname, of course, comes from Stonehenge in England, where the rising sun on the summer solstice in June aligns with the Neolithic monument’s Heel Stone.
In New York, things are different. Unlike any European city, New York’s streets run in straight lines, east-west and north-south, but the resulting grid layout isn’t perfectly linear: it runs in a straight line 29 degrees east of true north. As a result, the Sun sets over the grid at sunset exactly 22 and 23 days before, and 22 and 23 days after, the June solstice (which has already occurred on May 28 and 29, and only the latter is visible on clear days).
“What would a future civilization think if they were to excavate Manhattan Island and discover a meticulously planned network of roads?” Said Neil deGrasse Tyson, Hayden Planetarium “It certainly seems likely that this grid has an astronomical significance,” said researcher at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who coined the term Manhattanhenge.
Manhattanhenge takes place over two nights this weekend. On both nights, if you stand on one of Manhattan’s east-west boulevards at sunset, you’ll be able to watch the sun sink between the skyscrapers, but the view will be slightly different each night. Here’s what you’ll see on Friday and Saturday, along with the times and dates:
Friday, July 12: “Full Sun on the Grid”
On this day, the sun will set over Manhattan’s grid at exactly 8:20 pm EDT. The entire disk of the sun will appear above the grid and will be visible between the skyscrapers on Manhattan’s east and west streets.
Saturday, July 13: “Half Sun on the Grid”
New Yorkers looking west at 8:21pm EDT tonight will see half the sun disappear beneath the Manhattan grid, a moment known as the “kiss the grid” moment.
“These two days coincide with Memorial Day and baseball’s All-Star holiday,” says deGrasse Tyson. “Future anthropologists might conclude that through the sun, people who call themselves Americans worshipped war and baseball.” He suggests that the best places to see Manhattanhenge are 14th Avenue, 23rd Avenue, 34th Avenue, 42nd Avenue, and 57th Avenue.
Manhattanhenge occurs twice, once around the summer solstice, because the location of sunset changes throughout the year. From the Northern Hemisphere’s perspective, the sun only rises due east on the spring and fall equinoxes in March and September. On the summer solstice in June, the sun rises from its most northeastern position above the horizon. Because the grid is oriented 29 degrees east of due north, the sunrise location on the 22nd and 23rd days before and after the summer solstice will be aligned with due north.
In winter, the opposite is true: on the December solstice, the sun sets at its most southeastern point on the horizon. So why doesn’t Manhattanhenge occur on the 22nd or 23rd of each month? Manhattanhenge does occur, but it occurs at sunrise on a bitterly cold, cloudy winter day, so it is rarely seen or sought after.
