How Streethenge came to be

I first heard about Manhattanhenge from a podcast, maybe in 2023. I do not remember which one. I remember thinking the idea was more interesting than the photograph: a city street and the setting sun meeting for a few minutes, as if by appointment.

Later I began noticing the same thing closer to home. I had seen it before, but I had not thought of it as anything. Then it became a phenomenon. Walking my dogs, I would look up and find the sun at the end of the road. Driving, I would sometimes meet it as a blinding glare.

Where I live, it is seasonal. Twice a year, once in spring and once in autumn, I step out of my yard and the street is suddenly pointing into the light. I usually do not know the exact day, but I can tell when it is getting close.

Streethenge began as a way to know the day before it arrives.

These moments are scattered everywhere: in side streets, suburbs, villages, avenues, alleys, and roads people walk every day. Streethenge estimates when sunrise, sunset, moonrise, or moonset lines up with a street near you, so you can save the date, go there, and see what actually happens.

Streethenge can give you the day and the direction, but not the moment itself. You still have to go outside and stand there with the weather, the buildings, the trees, the parked cars, and the slight wrongness of the map. Sometimes nothing much happens. Then you can try again six months later.

If you photograph one of these moments, I would like to see it. The project may later include a public gallery of submitted street alignments. Send a photo