says WNYC: "SUN'S RAYS TURN MANHATTAN INTO STONEHENGE"

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/the_universe/uts/images/stonehenge_sunset_sm.jpg

Sun's Rays Turn Manhattan into Stonehenge

WNYC Newsroom

NEW YORK, NY, May 27, 2005 — There is some sun in the weekend weather forecast which means that a rare occurrence in the Manhattan skyline should be visible. At sunset tomorrow, the sun will set in exact alignment with Manhattan's street grid, turning the city's canyons into a kind of modern-day Stonehenge.

Every single cross-street in Manhattan, from 14th street up, will be illuminated for the last fifteen minutes of daylight. It's one of only two days a year when this happens, though the effect will be visible for a day or two before and after.

It happens because the length of Manhattan is tiny compared with the distance between the earth and the sun so the sun's rays are essentially parallel when the hit -- and fill all of the island's cross streets simultaneously.

Sunset on Saturday will be at exactly 8:18pm. After that, the point of sunset migrates slowly north, bringing us longer days. The effect will return again on July 11th.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 27 May 2005 20:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Alex can you get photos of this?

― M. White (Miguelito), Friday, 27 May 2005 20:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I'll try.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 27 May 2005 20:29 (twenty-one years ago)

So, say if you were standing in the middle of a street in midtown, facing east, you could see everything in front of you, including both sides of the street bathed by a perfect stripe of sunlight before the cab ran you over?

― M. White (Miguelito), Friday, 27 May 2005 20:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Is that the way you want to go, Mikey?

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 27 May 2005 20:39 (twenty-one years ago)

If it doesn't involve elite call girls and political scandal, I'm not sure I want anything to do with death.

― M. White (Miguelito), Friday, 27 May 2005 20:42 (twenty-one years ago)

This is something you have to EXPERIENCE, not photograph.. You have to glad through Manhattan in one fell swoop on a bike avoiding traffic in order to capture the moment. Best of luck, and don't send me the hospital bill.

(For those of you guys between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn i.e. most of Hawaii, most of South America, most of Africa, the mid East Asia, etc, there are always two days a year where the sun is directly overhead at a certain moment such that are NO SHADOWS! ooooooooo)

― donut debonair (donut), Friday, 27 May 2005 20:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, I was thinking of a light test I had to do in downtown SF one Sunday for a commercial. It consisted of getting into the middle of the street every fifteen minutes and taking a picture over eight hours. Somehting about it didn't go well and the Location Manager wanted me to do it again on Monday. I told him to go indulge in some auto-copulation.

― M. White (Miguelito), Friday, 27 May 2005 20:59 (twenty-one years ago)

That reminds me of this thread

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 27 May 2005 21:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Good thread, that one.

― M. White (Miguelito), Friday, 27 May 2005 21:16 (twenty-one years ago)

And it started out from much humbler origins than your Mexican food thread.

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 27 May 2005 21:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Considering it's progenitor...

― M. White (Miguelito), Friday, 27 May 2005 21:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought the sunsets had been particularly spectacular lately.

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Friday, 27 May 2005 22:09 (twenty-one years ago)

....and they do live WELL

― kingfish maximum overdrunk (Kingfish), Friday, 27 May 2005 23:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I knew someone would allude to `Tap.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 27 May 2005 23:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I cant viualise what this sun phenom will look like at all. Wouldnt you need to be at some height and distance to appreciate it - say, up in a building?

― Trayce (trayce), Saturday, 28 May 2005 01:56 (twenty-one years ago)

this happened last year too. i think gothamist mentioned it.

― a collectivist romantic fling! (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 28 May 2005 02:28 (twenty-one years ago)

indeed!

http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/05/28/manhattanhenge_today.php

― a collectivist romantic fling! (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 28 May 2005 02:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Ah! Now I see what y'all mean :) lovely :)

― Trayce (trayce), Saturday, 28 May 2005 03:00 (twenty-one years ago)

In ancient times, long before the dawn of history lived a strange race of people- the Goths. No one knows exactly who they were or what they were doing, but their legacy remains, hewn into the living rock ...

― Ken L (Ken L), Saturday, 28 May 2005 07:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Do you think that it would be cool to watch from a nice roof in Williamsburg?

― Cool Hand Luuke (ex machina), Saturday, 28 May 2005 17:38 (twenty-one years ago)

awesome. now i am dying to see an aerial photograph.

― Maria (Maria), Saturday, 28 May 2005 17:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Looks a bit cloudy at the mo'. Not sure we're going to get the proper conditions. It was quite striking last night, though.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 28 May 2005 19:17 (twenty-one years ago)

eight years pass...

It's this Friday! and thx to the Sunday NYT Mag I know the date in advance for the first time....

Apparently has become quite a thing. Where can one watch that isn't a clusterfuck? (I'm just intuiting that 23rd St might be more tolerable than 57th, but 34th and 42nd wd probly fry my nerves.)

― playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 18:14 (twelve years ago)

I went to 42nd around tudor city a few years back cause there's an overpass and you get the Chrysler building in the view

it was kinda a clusterfuck tho

― iatee, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 18:26 (twelve years ago)

overpasses! there must be others. The High Line is too high for that to work, maybe?

― playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 18:35 (twelve years ago)

it's not too high, it's too far west. further you go east the better, cause you're seeing it through more of the grid.

― iatee, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 18:37 (twelve years ago)

sure, of course

― playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 18:42 (twelve years ago)

this sounds nice..

― i guess i'd just rather listen to canned heat? (ian), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 18:42 (twelve years ago)

if you really want peace n quiet gantry state park in lic is another good place to see it

― iatee, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 18:42 (twelve years ago)

That looks p good

http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/nyc-skyline-from-gantry-state-park-at-night-david-giral.jpg

― playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 18:48 (twelve years ago)

Neil deGrasse Tyson's advice:

http://www.amnh.org/our-research/hayden-planetarium/resources/manhattanhenge

I'm thinking convening at a bar somewhere close to 14th and 1st might work.

― playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 18:56 (twelve years ago)

Going to try to catch this...Saturday's the main day according to that link?

― the mod urn dance (seandalai), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 19:41 (twelve years ago)

welp, the NYT Mag piece I first noticed said the 12th, and I'll be indoors watching Doctor Zhivago on the 13th, so it's the 12th for me.

― playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 19:45 (twelve years ago)

oh it's also the same night Cheap Trick is playing in Coney, FUCK.

― playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 10 July 2013 05:05 (twelve years ago)

seems this may be clouded or rained out tom'w, but who can say

― playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Friday, 12 July 2013 03:22 (twelve years ago)

ten months pass...

good spots for tomw eve?

http://gothamist.com/2014/05/29/manhattanhenge_2.php#.

― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 29 May 2014 21:09 (twelve years ago)

I hate the way everything in New York City has to be so heavily branded. "Manhattanhenge," it's like the cronut of celestial events.

― Doritos Loco Parentis (Hurting 2), Thursday, 29 May 2014 21:25 (twelve years ago)

deliciousness can't take up a full sentence

― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Friday, 30 May 2014 02:49 (twelve years ago)

eleven months pass...

tonight, again, 8:12

― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 May 2015 21:17 (eleven years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.