This Monday and Tuesday, New York once again enjoys one of its best sunsets thanks to the so-called “Manhattanhenge”, a phenomenon that occurs when the sunset aligns with the grid in which the streets of the city center are arranged.
This coincidence leaves each year spectacular images of the sun “gunned” between the skyscrapers of the Big Apple and is a fixed date for thousands of photography fans, who gather at the points with the best visibility to capture their snapshots.
This Monday, when looking west on the Manhattan grid, you will be able to see a half solar disk perfectly framed by the streets at sunset, while on Tuesday you will be able to enjoy a full view of the sun.
The weather forecasts -with clear days- and the date -today is a holiday in the United States- make this year an especially good time to witness the phenomenon.
The “Manhattanhenge”, which gets its name from a pun on England’s prehistoric monument Stonehenge, It occurs four days each year and this time it will be repeated on July 12 and 13.
The dates vary each year since the grid on which the streets of Manhattan are laid out is inclined about 30 degrees to the east. If the design were perfectly aligned north-south, the phenomenon would occur with the equinoxes, according to the well-known American astrophysicist and writer Neil deGrasse Tyson in an article for the Museum of Natural History in New York.
While other grid-based cities have similar moments, the height of Manhattan’s buildings and the fact that there are unobstructed views of the skyline from many points to the Hudson River make New York’s setting unique.
According to experts, the best points to witness the spectacle are the widest streets in Manhattan in an east-west direction (14, 23, 42 and 57).