Manhattanhenge

Manhattanhenge

Two days out of the year, the sun aligns perfectly with 34th Street in New York City, creating the gorgeous phenomenon that many have dubbed "Manhattanhenge." This year, it's happening today (May 28th) and again on July 13th.

The author of the article linked above asks a wonderfully evocative question: what will archaeologists of the far future, looking out on the unearthed remains of the metal and concrete jumble that is present day New York City, think when they match the sun's rise to the layout of that particular street on their own Manhattenhenge date? Will they believe that people from our era still worshiped some unnamed sun god, and that this was our way of presenting our land to him/her as a symbolic sacrifice? That's what we gather from Stonehenge and the records that remain from its time of modernity. So, assuming it would be possible for all records of New York and it's true importance and place in the American landscape to disappear from existence, and assuming that 34th Street and the surrounding area could be buried by land or water and eventually unearthed by future mankind, it doesn't take a drastic leap of the imagination to picture those eventual future beings looking out at the grid of roads and the lining-up of the sun and seeing the connection as something more meaningful than a simple coincidence in timing.

Do I believe that those scenarios could come together to lead to that future discovery and extrapolation?

No. But it's fun to imagine.

-JJ