Manhattanhenge Starts Tonight
c/o Getty Images
Is everybody ready for their Instagram feeds to be flooded tonight with photos of the sun setting in perfect alignment with Manhattan’s street grid? Good! Because it’s going to happen even if you’re not ready. That’s right: Tonight marks the first Manhattanhenge of 2015. Exciting, right? Sure. Why not.
Gothamist—whose Manhattanhenge coverage is the most comprehensive aka borderline obsessive available online—reports that tonight’s sunset marks the first of 2015’s Manhattanhenge appearances, to be followed by similar solar events tomorrow, May 30, and then in July, on the 12th and 13th. So, you know, if you find yourself on the east side of Manhattan at sunset this evening, look west! Marvel at the meticulous geniuses who planned that borough’s grid system, who were prophetic enough to realize that one day, decades upon decades in the future, New Yorkers who are otherwise so immersed in technology that they can’t rightly tell north from south without looking up for the Empire State Building to serve as a guide point, would be so captivated by that familiar fiery ball in the sky dropping into the Hudson that they would seek it out in all its incendiary glory, that they would come up with the portmanteau to beat all portmanteaus to commemorate the event.
Enjoy.
