ROOSEVELT ISLAND — FDR Four Freedoms Park is letting roughly 500 spectators stay after hours to watch the Manhattanhenge from a rare vantage point, organizers announced.
For the first time, the park, located on the south end of Roosevelt Island, will be specially opened on Tuesday after 7 p.m. — when it is usually shuttered — to allow a limited number of visitors watch the phenomenon, where the setting sun lines up with the city's East-West streets for a picturesque twilight.
"Four Freedoms Park has one of the best views of the skyline in the entire city," said Madeline Grimes, a spokeswoman for the FDR Four Freedoms Park Conservancy. "We wanted to invite photographers and urban architecture enthusiasts to the park to witness the light show from within the park."
Beginning at 7 p.m., visitors will be privy to the 4-and-a-half-acre park, where the Mitch Frohman Latin Jazz Quartet will perform live music and and there will be food, beer and wine for sale at the Katchkie Farm Food Station.
The best view will begin at 8:26 p.m., on 48th Street, between the Trump World Plaza on United Nations Plaza and 860 United Nations Plaza, the spokeswoman said.
Everyone will be encouraged to take photos and submit them to the park's ongoing photography contest for a $500 Adorama camera store gift certificate.
The Conservancy said the hope is to make the event an annual tradition.
To attend RSVP online.