Solar Alignments Cause 'Manhattanhenge' This Weekend Live Science - May 29, 2009
- For 15 minutes around sunset on two days this summer, the sun will set in exact alignment with the cross streets of Manhattan's street grid, making the city's towering buildings function something like a modern-day Stonehenge. They call it Manhattanhenge (Wikipedia)
The first Manhattanhenge opportunity comes this weekend: On Saturday (May 30) at 8:17 p.m. EDT the ball of the sun will be half above the horizon, half below if you look west down a major cross-street (34th Street and 42nd Street are good viewing locations). On Sunday, May 31, the entire solar sphere will be visible just above the horizon at 8:17 p.m. EDT.
The second opportunity comes later in the summer, with another half-sphere sunset on Sunday, July 12, at 8:25 p.m. EDT and a whole-sphere viewing on Saturday, July 11, at 8:25 p.m. EDT. These times are calculated every year by the astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, who coined the term "Manhattanhenge."
The "henge" comes of course from Stonehenge, the prehistoric monument in the Salisbury plains of England. The large structure of stones and earthen mounds is thought to be a burial ground that was oriented to face the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset.
Manhattan's street grid doesn't run geographically north to south, but instead aligns itself with the direction of the island. If the grid did run north-south, Manhattanhenge would fall on the spring and autumn equinoxes, the only two days during the year when the Sun rises due-east and sets due-west. (The equinoxes occur when the sun sits directly over the Earth's equator and the length of day and night are roughly equal.)
Because Manhattan's grid is rotated 28.9 degrees east from geographic north, the days of alignment with the cross streets are also shifted. Manhattan's street grid was laid down by the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which was adopted by the New York State Legislature. New York isn't the only city that can have its own "henge" events: Any city crossed by a rectangular grid has days where the setting Sun aligns with the streets. But a clear view of the horizon and straight streets are needed, and New York might be the only city that fits the bill.
New York
Science Daily - May 30, 2009
For the very first time in New York coastal waters, the voices of singing blue whales have been positively identified - the voice of a singing blue whale was tracked about 70 miles off of Long Island and New York City as the whale swam slowly from east to west. At the same time, a second blue whale was heard singing offshore in the far distance. "These endangered blue whales are the largest animals ever to have lived on this planet, and their voices can travel across an ocean. It's just amazing to hear one singing out there on New York¹s ocean stage only tens of miles from Carnegie Hall and Broadway!"
Blue Whale Wikipedia
May 20-24
Secrets codes left by the Freemasons and Knights Templar remain in specific areas of the planet awakening souls through the passages of time. As if an initiation, souls are drawn to these areas to decipher clues allowing them to remember the blueprint of the program of our reality and where it is all going. They quest until they 'get it'. Along the way ... their frequencies accelerates ... their consciousness detaching from physical reality.
The Statue of Liberty - SOL - Sun Gods - Leo - Lion -- The general appearance of the Statue of Liberty's head approximates the Roman Sun-god Apollo or the Greek Sun-god Helios as preserved on an ancient marble tablet (today in the Archaeological Museum in Corinth, Greece). Apollo was represented as a solar deity, dressed in a similar robe and having on its head a "radiate crown" with the seven spiked rays of the Helios-Apollo's sun rays, like the Statue's nimbus or halo.
May 20, 2009
What most impressed me with this news article is the first paragraph describing the double helix (twin towers) - a DNA trigger of consciousness linked to the Masonic Program and July 4th, a key date in my book 2012 Sarah and Alexander. To climb to the top of the Statue of Liberty would be to replicate the ascension process of consciousness (crown, crown chakra, consciousness, stargate, SG or Sacred Geometry) back to the spiraling creational flame held by a female creator. I never realized the Statue of Liberty faces Brooklyn and my home until I read the article.
- The twin sets of steps entwine into a double helix. To climb toward Lady Liberty's crown is to feel like you are ascending a huge strand of freedom's DNA. In much the same way freedom is achieved, the climb is arduous and requires individual effort and attention even when you are part of a group - the group Wednesday being media who were offered a preview of the July 4 reopening.
Up, up, up you go, as visitors did for decades before 9/11, as no member of the public has for eight long years. No fire inspector would ever approve a setup where the sole entrance and egress is by one up stairway and one down, the steps just 19 inches across and only 6 inches deep at the central pole around which they twist. The structure itself is so delicate that the copper skin is the thickness of only two pennies and pierced in places so you can see pinholes of sunlight. But the ascent to the inside of the crown was deemed safe enough for visitors before 9/11. Closing it since then felt too much like giving in to the terror the terrorists sought to instill.
Some who are more rotund than robust may find reason to grumble about the reopening as they pass step 100. One good way to keep going is to think of the firefighters who climbed the stricken twin towers burdened with gear.
Then, at step 140, you are bathed in sunlight. Another half- dozen steps and you finally arrive at a 10-by-5-foot steel platform corrugated like a shop's sidewalk cellar board. On this supremely democratic footing, you stand before the 25 small windows set in the crown. The biggest is at the center, and to peer through it is to gaze along Lady Liberty's line of sight.
"I hate to bust your bubble, the statue isn't facing Manhattan," U.S. Park Ranger Kenya Finley said Wednesday. "It's facing France, but you see Brooklyn first." The Manhattan skyline is visible through the windows to the left. "The big difference is the twin towers aren't there anymore," Finley observed. Finley began work here on Sept. 11, 2000. Her first visit to the crown was a call for assistance. "Unfortunately, I had to help somebody who decided they were scared of heights," she said. Exactly a year later, she watched from Liberty Island as the planes flew into the World Trade Center. The island was evacuated, and even the pedestal remained closed for three years, as if the whole nation had become afraid of heights.
The crown will finally be reopened on July 4. The heart will sink on seeing the absence in the skyline. "You still get to see the harbor," Finley noted. "You still get to see the ships going by." And the heart soars as you gaze out at the harbor and ships, feeling like you are meeting the hopeful gaze of the millions of immigrants who peered up at the figure with the upraised torch. You are quite literally in Lady Liberty's head, and you can raise your own hand to touch ripples in the copper overhead. "That is the ripple of her hair," Finley confirmed.
The skin had been warmed by the sun, copper making great cooking pans as well as statues. Let's hope for a cool July 4, because the interior can be 20 degrees hotter than the outdoors, and the rule is to close the statue if the temperature outside tops 90. High winds can sway the crown as much as 5 inches, and this can combine with the heat and the climb to make for a daunting visit. That is only appropriate. Liberty has always required a struggle.
A reminder came at midmorning as Fleet Week brought the guided missile cruiser Vella Gulf into the harbor. The ship recently captured two bands of Somali pirates. She now powered past Lady Liberty, and the crown whose jewels will again be windows filled with faces of every kind, which together are the face of freedom.
Images: Fleet Week 2009 NY Daily News - May 21, 2009
The guided-missile destroyer USS Roosevelt sailed under the Verranzo Bridge
during the Parade of Ships, on May 20, 2009, to kick off the annual event.
Samantha Stone
The Statue of Liberty and Related Adventures
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