NEW YORK – New York City crowds will gather Tuesday evening to marvel at a famous sunset.
Manhattanhenge is an annual occurrence when the sun lines up perfectly with the buildings in Manhattan. It provides a cinema-worthy photo opportunity, too.
Monday night’s crowds to see the half sun gathered across the Big Apple to capture the big moment.
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Tuesday evening’s sunset of the full sun is expected to be even better shortly after 8 p.m. just before sinking into the Hudson River. It is best viewed from the east side and from the widest, cross-town streets.
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The traditional viewing spots are along the city’s broad east-west thoroughfares: 14th Street, 23rd Street, 34th Street, 42nd Street and 57th Street.
The farther east you go, the more dramatic the vista as the sun’s rays hit building facades on either side. It is also possible to see Manhattanhenge across the East River in the Long Island City section of Queens.
The second set of dates for Manhattanhenge falls on July 12 (full sun) and July 13 (half sun).
Similar effects occur in other cities with uniform street grids. Chicagohenge and Baltimorehenge happen when the setting sun lines up with the grid systems in those cities during March and September, around the spring and fall equinoxes. Torontohenge occurs around Feb. 16 and Oct. 25.
However, Manhattanhenge is particularly striking because of the height of the buildings and the unobstructed path to the Hudson.
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Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson coined the term in a 1997 article in the magazine Natural History. Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium at New York’s American Museum of Natural History, has said that he was inspired by a visit to Stonehenge as a teenager.
The future host of TV shows like PBS’ “Nova ScienceNow” was part of an expedition led by Gerald Hawkins, the scientist who first theorized that Stonehenge’s mysterious megaliths were an ancient astronomical observatory.
It struck Tyson, a native New Yorker, that the setting sun framed by Manhattan’s high-rises could be compared to the sun’s rays striking the center of the Stonehenge circle on the solstice.
Unlike the Neolithic Stonehenge builders, the planners who laid out Manhattan did not mean to channel the sun. It just worked out that way.
FOX 5 in New York contributed to this report.