Where and how to see the sunset align with Manhattan’s street grid

Vocabulary

Alignment – n., to place or arrange in a straight line
Solstice – n., either of the two times in the year when the sun is furthest from the celestial equator, occurring in June and December.
Celestial – adj., of or having to do with the sky or outer space.
Grid – n., parallel horizontal and vertical lines that cross each other to form squares of equal size.
Anthropologist – n, someone who studies people and their cultures
Presume – v., to take for granted; assume.
Radiant –  adj., sending out heat or rays of light; shining brightly

Sunset looking down 34th Street. One of two days when the sunset is exactly aligned with the grid of streets in Manhattan.

Copyright © 2001, Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson on Manhattanhenge

What will future civilizations think of Manhattan Island when they dig it up and find a carefully laid out network of streets and avenues? Surely the grid would be presumed to have astronomical significance, just as we have found for the pre-historic circle of large vertical rocks known as Stonehenge, in the Salisbury Plain of England. For Stonehenge, the special day is the summer solstice, when the Sun rises in perfect alignment with several of the stones, signaling the change of season.

For Manhattan, a place where evening matters more than morning, that special day comes twice a year, when the setting Sun aligns precisely with the Manhattan street grid, creating a radiant glow of light across Manhattan’s brick and steel canyons, simultaneously illuminating both the north and south sides of every cross street of the borough’s grid. A rare and beautiful sight. These two days happen to correspond with Memorial Day and Baseball’s All Star break. Future anthropologists might conclude that, via the Sun, the people who called themselves Americans worshiped War and Baseball.

For these two days, as the Sun sets on the grid, half the disk sits above and half below the horizon. My personal preference for photographs. But the day after also offers Manhattanhenge moments, but at sunset, you instead will find the entire ball of the Sun on the horizon.

Where to See Manhattanhenge

View the sunset from Manhattan’s main east/west thoroughfares:

• 14th Street
• 23rd Street
• 34th Street
• 42nd Street
• 57th Street

Find a spot as far east as possible that still has views of New Jersey across the Hudson River.

The sunset can also be viewed from these locations:

• Tudor City Overpass, Manhattan
• Hunter’s Point South Park in Long Island City, Queens

Manhattanhenge 2024 Times

Between May 30-July 11, the “Manhattanhenge Effect” occurs, where the Sun appears between the grid of the city as it’s low in the sky and setting.

Full Sun on the Grid

Friday, July 12, at 8:20 pm ET

Full sun on the grid during Manhattanhenge.

Half Sun on the Grid

Saturday, July 13 at 8:21 pm ET

Half sun on the grid during Manhattanhenge.

Manhattanhenge may just be a unique urban phenomenon in the world, if not the universe.

FUN FACT:

While we are on the subject, when viewed from all latitudes north of the Tropic of Cancer (23.5 degrees north latitude), the Sun always rises at an angle up and to the right, and sets at an angle down and to the right. That’s how you can spot a faked sunrise in a movie: it moves up and to the left. Filmmakers are not typically awake in the morning hours to film an actual sunrise, so they film a sunset instead, and then time-reverse it, thinking nobody will notice.

Source: Neil deGrasse Tyson, https://www.amnh.org/research/hayden-planetarium/manhattanhenge