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It’s time New Yorkers got so excited about the setting sun.

Because Manhattanhenge is after us. When the weather cooperates, it can produce four of the year’s most stunning sunsets in New York.

The name is a New Yorker-style nod. Stonehenge, ancient rock structure in the English countryside This aligns with sunset and sunrise at the summer and winter solstices. This pre-modern monument was purposely built for religious and spiritual reasons. By contrast, New York City’s grid wasn’t designed with sunsets in mind, but it began to function in a similar way. For four days each May and July, it can bring people together to admire our particular geographic location in the universe as the sun sets on the horizon and disappears perfectly along the city’s wide west-east corridors.

An event like Manhattanhenge could bring the entire borough to a halt and urge people to celebrate a normal day’s sunset.

As if New York couldn’t be more magical, the sunsets of Manhattanhenge illuminate the streets with a deep tangerine and bubblegum pink glow, turning the bustling streets into a place where you can stop and say “wow.”

“It’s so famous because it’s a gorgeous sunset,” said Jackie Faherty, senior scientist and astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History. “The sun kisses the grid of one of the world’s largest, if not the largest, cities and touches the entire corridor of the concrete jungle with these incredible golden hues. This is a good thing.”

When is Manhattanhenge?

You’ll have four chances to see it—twice in spring and twice in summer, at either end of the summer solstice, on June 21, the longest day of the year.

This long Memorial Day weekend, Manhattanhenge happens twice:

• Half sun at 20:13 ET on Sunday, May 29.

• Monday, May 30, full sun at 20:12

Then, in July, you’ll have two more chances to see a perfect sunset:

• Monday, July 11, full sun at 8:20 pm

• Half sun on Tuesday, July 12 at 20:21

What causes Manhattanhenge?

We can witness this celestial event due to the approaching summer solstice, the combination of the city’s grid design and the natural shape the island of Manhattan took during the last ice age.

About 18,000 years ago, the massive ice sheet on top of North America began to melt, carving out the island of Manhattan and the modern landscape on which the city was built.

“We think Manhattan Island is running north-south. But it’s not actually north-south; it’s running northeast to southwest,” said Carol Krinksy, an American architectural historian at New York University.

This orientation along with the street design, he said, allows the setting sun in the west to join this show.

Dr. “The grid system was designed for Manhattan before there was even an official New York City,” Krinsky added. this 1811 Commissioners Plan Activate 90 degree blocks for the official design of the city. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this was primarily for the real estate market: Most home buyers don’t want to buy lots that are cut at odd angles.

Above 14th Street and below 155th Street, the city is divided by a grid. During the summer solstice, when the Earth tilts towards the sun and then moves away from the sun, our beloved Manhattanhenge is revealed. It also shows how structures built by humans interact with the natural world.

“Things like this are deeply connected not only with the actual architecture of the universe around us, but also with our interaction with it,” said Columbia University astronomer Caleb Scharf. “The city is an extension of us.”

Dr. Scharf adds that, like Stonehenge, Manhattanhenge helps us find patterns in our environment and make sense of them.

“At one point, someone was like, ‘Why is this happening?’ will have the question,” he said. “’Wait, oh, the sun doesn’t always stay in the same place on the horizon. Why?’ This is often the ‘Aha!’ moments when we suddenly have the urge to really explain what we’re seeing, instead of just saying, ‘Oh, that’s beautiful.

Fortunately, anywhere within the grid system above 14th Street can give you some sort of view.

You also need to see New Jersey clearly and Dr. Adds Faherty, “You really have to be in the middle of the street for the full effect, it’s kind of dangerous.”

Ideally, choose a street with wide streets and a median that you can stand on and watch safely. If there is a large hill, your view will be blocked.

While almost everyone goes to 42nd Street, Dr. Faherty recommends 72nd Street instead. But if you want to join the downtown crowd, Pershing Square is a great sight, as is the area above Grand Central Station on the taxi line. While the New York Police Department tries to shut this place down every year, photographers fill the place and it can get pretty chaotic.

Manhattanhenge can also be seen outside of Manhattan. In Brooklyn or Queens, Dr. Faherty says there’s a variety of places you can see from across the city to New Jersey. She recommends Gantry State Park in Queens for the best experience on the island.