Half-past Fifty-Second Street
I'm not really much on repeating things from other people's blogs, but I found this on bldgblog and it seemed cool enough to repeat:
"As it happens, then, Manhattan's mathematically rational street grid is actually rotated 29ยบ off the north-south axis – and this angle has interesting astronomical side-effects... because of the off-center orientation of Manhattan's street grid, you can only see the setting sun "down the middle of any crosstown street" on two specific days of the year: May 28 and July 13. July 13 is, of course, next week – so watch out for it."
This reminds me of both Aztec and Khmer city building, in which cities actually functioned as giant calenders. 
If I were in New York, I think I'd throw some kind of party.
2 comments:
That made me wonder what angle downtown Minneapolis is set to.
yeah, that's an interesting question. I believe that in the neighborhoods it's actually exactly north-south, but downtown is kind of twisted to match the curves of the river. In my head it's kind of a 45 degree sort of thing, but who knows if that's off.
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