Thanks to the magic of blogging, I can pinpoint exactly when I discovered the phenomenon that is Manhattanhenge: it was just after the first occurrence of 2016 that took place on May 30 of that year, and in the aftermath the internet generally and my feed in particular was flooded with images from the spectacle and my inner urban planning geek could not get over it.

The term “Manhattanhenge” was coined by Neil DeGrasse Tyson to describe the moment in time when the setting sun perfectly line...