Eclipsing the City

Q. When was the last time a total solar eclipse was visible from New York City?

A. On the morning of Saturday, Jan. 24, 1925, just after 9 o'clock. It was a cold, clear day, and the city was covered by snow.

A front-page article in The New York Times said: ''Downtown Manhattan at 8 o'clock -- even at 9 o'clock, and for a good half-hour thereafter -- was not a bit like its usual self. The financial district had the appearance of a Sunday afternoon in Summer, although groups of clerks strained their necks from eastward-facing windows or tried to catch glimpses of the sky spectacle from the small open spaces between the tall buildings.''

New York City was at the southern edge of the eclipse's path. In fact, the ''belt of totality'' reached only as far south as 96th Street in Manhattan, so residents of Brooklyn, southern Queens, Staten Island and much of Manhattan missed the full spectacle. They crowded onto roofs, bridges and the upper floors of skyscrapers nonetheless. Open spaces in the city's northern reaches were mobbed by eclipse gazers, who braved the 9-degree cold to watch as the moon's shadow gradually cast the city into morning twilight. Streetlights across the city flickered to life. Skyscrapers blinked in empty streets. At the Bronx Zoo, herds of deer raced in panic.

At 9:11, the sun disappeared completely. ''As the black ball of the moon settled over the fiery sphere of the sun, the brilliantly shimmering corona came into sharp relief against the dull sky,'' The Times wrote. The sun reappeared about 30 seconds later.