Stonehenge in the City

Michael Pollak wrote about it in the May 21, 2006 New York Times as follows.

Q. I've heard about a "Manhattan solstice," when the sun supposedly lines up along the streets. Is it for real? When does it happen?

A. Here's the lowdown on the sundown, courtesy of Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History.

On May 28 and on July 13, the sun will fully illuminate every Manhattan cross street (not the curved or angled ones) on the street grid during the last 15 minutes of daylight, and it will set on each street's center line.

The sight is breathtaking.

This is a special photo opportunity, with parts of Manhattan's canyons getting illumination they normally don't get.

If the Manhattan street grid ran north-south and east-west, the alignment days would be the spring and fall equinoxes, the two days when the sun rises due east and sets due west.

But the Manhattan grid is angled 30 degrees east from geographic north, shifting the days.

There are two corresponding mornings of sunrise right on the center lines of the Manhattan grid, Dr. Tyson wrote in an e-mail message: Dec. 5, 2006, and Jan. 8, 2007.

Those four solstice days will shift no more than a day over four years as a result of leap days, Dr. Tyson wrote.

But the shift is so small that if you went out only on these dates, you would see the effect just fine.

"In fact the effect is good for a day on either side of the advertised days, typically offering a range of weather choices for the avid viewer," he wrote.

As for the sunset next Sunday and on July 13, Dr. Tyson wrote, the sun will line up on the center lines just as its falls halfway below the horizon.

The official sunset, when "the sun's last smidgen sets below the horizon," lines up on slightly different days, but this one makes for a nicer photo.

--------------------

Guess what, Gotham gang: you're in luck.

'Cause "In fact the effect is good for a day on either side of the advertised days [one of which was yesterday]...."

So make sure you're out on the street around sunset today if you have any remaining Druid sensibilities — or simply want to pose.

One more thing: how is it that Allan Moult in Tasmania, who emailed me this story last night, saw it and I — who purport to religiously scour the hard copy version of the Times every day for stuff like this so you don't have to, and can go about your very important business — didn't?

You can bet your bottom dollar my crack research team's gonna be taken out back to the woodshed (it's adjacent to my skunk works, in case you were wondering how bookofjoe World Headquarters™ is laid out) for what we call in these parts a good old-fashioned talking-to.

[via Allan Moult and leatherwoodonline]