Manhattanhenge Returns: How To Spot NYC's 2nd Sunset Spectacle In 2023

NEW YORK CITY — Manhattanhenge is coming back for a two-night encore sure to light up everyone's Instagrams.

The twice-a-year event when the sun aligns precisely with Manhattan's street grid returns Wednesday.

At 8:20 p.m., the full sun will appear in its entire spherical wonder at the end of the borough's east-west numbered streets, according to the American Museum of Natural History.

New Yorkers will get another spectacular show Thursday at 8:21 p.m., when the half sun will appear on the city's grid.

"A rare and beautiful sight," is how famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who coined the term "Manhattanhenge," described it.

Manhattanhenge is a happy quirk of city planning.

The borough's perfectly straight grid, as Tyson pointed out, happens to align with the setting sun twice a year. He compared it to Stonehenge, where the sun rises in perfect alignment with some of its stones on the summer solstice.

For Manhattan, its twice-yearly solar alignments are a bit different and, arguably, less celestially important.

"These two days happen to correspond with Memorial Day and Baseball's All Star break," Tyson wrote. "Future anthropologists might conclude that, via the Sun, the people who called themselves Americans worshiped War and Baseball."

The first Manhattanhenge alignments this year unfolded May 29 and May 30.

New Yorkers who want to grab a good view are recommended by the Natural History Museum to check out the following spots:

• 14th Street
• 23rd Street
• 34th Street
• 42nd Street
• 57th Street
• Tudor City Overpass, Manhattan
• Hunter's Point South Park, Long Island City, Queens

Sunset-watchers should find a spot as far east as possible, while still having views of New Jersey across the Hudson River, the AMNH recommends.

Patch writer Gus Saltonstall contributed to this report.