Manhattanhenge 2023

The man, my niece and I went down to Seventy-ninth Street to catch Manhattanhenge on Tuesday night. I sent the pictures to my niece's mom in Jamaica, who was rather confused. "It looks like something from the apocalypse," she texted me back. "Or Day of the Walking Dead." In fact, it's one of those moments when New Yorkers pour out of their homes to participate in something simple and shared, a sunset perfectly aligned with the East-West grid of Manhattan's streets, and everyone is just taking it in, many with cameras raised in a kind of ritual salute, and for a moment, the city feels like a community. An interesting note, the windows of my husband's department in the newly built wing at the natural history museum where he is an ichthyologist look directly down this street, as if purposely angled for optimal viewing of this annual celestial event. The geek in me finds that incredibly cool. I think he was kind of stoked when he realized it, too.