The 10 most-read articles of 2023 cover a wide range of local news. This past year saw traffic on the New Canaanite exceed 2.5 million views, up 4.2% from 2022.
Here they are, headlines and ledes:
The chair of the Board of Education said Monday night that he will step away from the elected body temporarily. The chair read out the following prepared statement at the start of the Board’s regular meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School, his first public comments since being arrested the prior week for drunk-driving (related).
A train crashes through the end barrier on the New Canaan branch line on the morning of Feb. 14, 2023. Credit: Carl Franco, https://twitter.com/FrancosWine
A Metro-North Railroad train crashed through the barrier at the end of the New Canaan branch line Tuesday morning. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the conductor was injured in the crash, which occurred at about 7:23 a.m. near the corner of Elm and Park Streets, according to a fire dispatch notice. Metro-North Railroad when reached by the New Canaanite said only that the train “was not a passenger train” and there were no customers on board.
8. ‘We’re Excited To Be Here’: Best Pizza Shop Opens on Main Street (Jan. 17)
Detroit-style “Italian Hippie” pizza at Best Pizza Shop, now open on Main Street in New Canaan. Credit: Terry Dinan
John Parlatore and his young family were among the first wave of New Yorkers to make the move out of the city when COVID hit in March of 2020. “My sister lived up here for about four years and we’d come up and visit her all the time,” Parlatore said on a recent evening at Best Pizza Shop at 62 Main St.
- Two Arrested for Cutting 2,000-Plus Fiber Optic Lines, Causing Widespread Internet Outage [UPDATED] (April 2)
[Note: This article has been updated with information from Altice USA/Optimum.] Two residents of Asheville, N.C.—a 30-year-old woman and 26-year-old man—have been arrested in connection with the Optimum outage that saw tens of thousands of customers, including much of New Canaan, lose their Internet service about 10 days ago, according to Norwalk Police.
Michael and Allison Rees. Photo courtesy of New Canaan Library
New Canaan Library announced Monday that a local couple has donated $3 million toward the organization’s capital campaign. The library’s Children’s Room has been renamed The Rees Family Children’s Library after Michael and Allison Rees, according to a press release.
The town’s chief building official last week received a formal letter objecting to the proposed demolition of an approximately 95-year-old house that sits on a widely discussed lot at Weed and Elm Streets. During Tuesday’s Board of Selectmen meeting, Selectman Kathleen Corbet asked Moynihan for an update on the Gulf Station. In response, Moynihan said, “I don’t want to talk about that in public, that’s a real estate transaction.” When Corbet asked for an update in two weeks’ time, Moynihan said, “Yes, there will be developments by then.” Yet when asked about it, Lenny Fugaro, co-owner of the gas station and repair shop at 36 South Ave., said he has no idea what Moynihan is talking about.
Gulf Station at 36 South Ave. in New Canaan. Credit: Michael Dinan
Once again, the owner of the Gulf Station downtown is denying First Selectman Kevin Moynihan’s claims that there’s movement on plans for the town to acquire the property. The 10,000-square-foot home at 751 Weed St.—a 3.1-acre parcel where a 120-unit residential development is planned, under a state affordable housing statute—was built by an “an important resident in New Canaan,” according to Mimi Findlay’s letter.
Christine Knox of Posh Home Décor Consignment in New Canaan, inside the shop at 33 East Ave. Credit: Michael Dinan
The idea for a high-end consignment shop had been percolating in recent years for New Canaan’s Christine Knox. She’d always liked beautiful things and—after earning a bachelor’s degree in art history at Skidmore College and a master’s in art history from Williams College—she went to work for about six years in the field of art, through museums and at Christie’s Auction House.
St. Aloysius School. Photo courtesy of Colette LeBrun
Citing declining enrollment, Diocese of Bridgeport officials said this week that St. Aloysius School—a New Canaan institution that has educated generations of local youth for more than six decades, including classmates Steve Benko and Rick Franco—will not reopen in the fall. The Catholic school has been displaced temporarily to a Stamford campus this academic year as St. A’s prepares to build a new 26,000-square-foot “Education and Faith Center”—a plan that remains in place (see below). Yet in a March 28 letter to the school community (printed in full below), Diocese Superintendent of Schools Dr. Steven Cheeseman noted that enrollment has declined by 40% over the past five years.
L-R: Bob Butman, Nick Williams, Lisa Oldham, Ellen Crovatto, Todd Lavieri and Steve Karl. The new New Canaan Library on the day of its opening—Feb. 14, 2023. Credit: Michael Dinan
Some day soon—“it could even be today,” Town Council Chair Steve Karl said Tuesday morning, addressing a crowd of 300-plus people gathered outside the new New Canaan Library—a boy or girl “will walk through these doors and learn to read for the first time.” “They’ll be holding their parents’ hands, and when they leave here they may leave with a book in the other hand,” Karl said. “Their eyes will be open and they will begin a journey of learning that will last a lifetime. It’s been a magical journey on the corner of Main and Cherry for 100 years now. I actually learned to read here, as well. When the ribbon is cut in a few short minutes, it will represent hundreds of thousands of hours in long-range planning, thoughtful design, hard work, gritty determination and literally a small army of people putting this together.”