Flight over Manhattan LWP

1. Twice a year around May 28 and July 12, the sunset aligns with the east-west streets of the main street grid of Manhattan, filling the horizon with an unrivaled cityscape. This event has become known as Manhattanhenge–as coined by NYC native Neil deGrasse Tyson.

2. The subway musicians are known as buskers and they have to audition in order to play here. That’s because the subway stop at Time Square can see 173,000 pass through, which is 10 times the audience of a sold out show at Madison Square Garden.

3. Buskers have been auditioning to fight for a two-week permit that allows them to play at prime locations throughout the subway since 1985. Some of them have gone on to play Carnegie Hall.

4. Times Square uses 161 megawatts of electricity every year.

5. That’s enough energy to power approximately 161,000 average US homes and twice the electricity required to power all of the casinos in Las Vegas.

6. To compare the difference of life here before the “Disneyfication” of the city, just look at the facts. 1992 saw 2,154 murders occur, while 2012 cut that number down to 414.

7. Times Square is named after the New York Times building.

8. It take approximately 75,000 trees to print a Sunday edition of The New York Times newspaper.

9. The largest printing of the New York Times was a Sunday edition that was delivered on September 14, 1987. With 1,612 pages, the paper weighed a whopping 12 pounds. That’s twice the size of the average weight of a newborn baby.

10. When you think of large, sparkly lights in Manhattan, you probably think of the famous New Year’s Eve ball, but you should probably think of the star at the top of the beloved Christmas tree at 30 Rock. This 550 pound Swarovski star is made from 25,000 crystals, 720 LED bulbs, 44circuit boards, and about 3,000 feet of wire and is worth an estimated $1.5 million.

11. The first Christmas Tree went up in Rockefeller Center in 1933 during the Great Depression. The workmen were so grateful to have the job, they decorated the tree with strings of cranberries, garland made of paper, and tin cans. On Christmas Eve, they lined up under the tree and received the greatest gift of all: paychecks.

12. How does Rockefeller Center manage to find the perfect seven-story spruce tree each holiday season? They conduct aerial searches by helicopter, of course, and have it shipped to the city during the night when the streets aren’t as gridlocked.

13. After the Rockefeller tree is taken down for the year, it continues to get put to good use. In 2005, Habitat for Humanity used the wood to make doorframes for houses for the needy and in 2012, the paper went towards publishing a book called The Carpenter’s Gift.

14. It costs $1 million to be licensed to operate a cab here. No, that is not a typo.

15. When Philippe Petit walked 61 meters between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on a tightrope nearly 1,300 feet above the street in 1975, he not only broke records, but he broke laws as well. It has since been called the “artistic crime of the century.”

16. Philippe Petit planned his tightrope stunt for months. He conducted internal research on the buildings by dressing up like a construction workers and office employees and forged ID cards to get through security. He and his team used a bow and arrow to pass large ropes across the divide of the buildings so that they could string the steel cable which he used.

17. Petit was offered to be cleared of all charges in exchange for doing community service in the act of a public performance for children in Central Park. He did a high-wire walk over Turtle Pond and has gone on to perform all over the world, including New York City, numerous times.

18. Permits to sell hot dogs from the much beloved food carts in the city can cost as much as $289,000 per year in the Central Park area

19. The Empire State Building has its own zip code, 10118.