New York — Twice a year, New York City residents and visitors look to the sky to experience a phenomenon known as Manhattanhenge.
The setting sun was framed by a valley of skyscrapers Thursday as it sank below the horizon, perfectly matching Manhattan’s street grid.
The dramatic spectacle was the first of the year. A fuller version of a sunset between New York’s famous skyscrapers is expected to be seen on Friday. Then the phenomenon is repeated on July 11 and 12.
The Manhattanhenge occurs about three weeks before and after the Manhattanhenge incident Summer solstice.
Over the years, it has become a must-see event, as photographers and others take to the city’s sidewalks on spring and summer evenings.
Some basic information about the unique New York experience:
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson coined the term in a 1997 article in the journal Natural History. Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, said he was inspired by his visit to Stonehenge as a teenager.
The future host of television shows like PBS’s “Nova ScienceNow” was part of an expedition led by Gerald Hawkins, the scientist who first hypothesized that the mysterious stones of Stonehenge were an ancient astronomical observatory.
Tyson, a native New Yorker, was amazed that the sunset surrounded by Manhattan’s towering buildings could be compared to the sun’s rays striking the center of Stonehenge’s circle on the solstice.
Unlike the Neolithic builders of Stonehenge, the planners who laid out Manhattan did not intend to direct the sun. It worked that way.
Manhattanhenge does not occur on the summer solstice itself, which is June 21 this year. Instead, it occurs about three weeks before and after the coup. That’s when the sun lines up perfectly with the eastern and western streets of Manhattan’s grid.
Viewers can choose between two different versions of this phenomenon.
On Thursday, and again on July 12, the sun was half above the horizon and the other half below it at the moment it aligned with the streets of Manhattan. according to Hayden Planetarium.
On Friday and July 11, the entire sun will appear to hover between buildings before plunging into the New Jersey skyline across the Hudson River.
Traditional viewing locations are located along the city’s wide east-west thoroughfares: 14th Street, 23rd Street, 34th Street, 42nd Street and 57th Street.
The further east you go, the more dramatic the scene becomes as the sun hits the facades of the buildings on both sides of the street. It is also possible to see Manhattanhenge across the East River in the Long Island City section of Queens.
No, not really.
Seeing Manhattanhenge is mostly a subjective matter. People gather on the eastern and western streets a half-hour or so before sunset and take photos as dusk approaches. That is if the weather is good. There is no Manhattanhenge visible on rainy or cloudy days.
Similar effects occur in other cities with uniform street networks. Chicagohenge and BaltimoreHing It occurs when the setting sun lines up with grid streets in those cities in the months of March and September, around the spring and autumn equinox. torontohenge It occurs in February and October.
But Manhattanhenge is especially eye-catching because of the tall buildings and the unobstructed path to the Hudson River.