Top-10 Stories of 2024

The 10 most-read articles of 2024 cover a wide range of local news. This past year saw traffic on the New Canaanite exceed 2.5 million views.

Here they are, headlines and ledes:

10. Animal Cruelty Warrant: Dog Left Alone without Adequate Food, Water or Shelter ‘For Multiple Days’ (Feb. 20)

Authorities on Feb. 7 charged a New Canaan man with cruelty to animals because his dog was left outside for multiple days without proper food, water or shelter, according to a police officer’s affidavit in an arrest warrant application. 

9. New Canaanite Marks 10-Year Milestone (Jan. 31)

NewCanaanite.com marks its 10-year anniversary today, Jan. 31. I’m going to try here to explain how the website started, how I set it up to run and what it has come to mean to me. How the website started: My big brother Terry was still living at home when our family hit its biggest rough patch. It was just as I was starting at New Canaan High School. Our dad moved out. Some months later, Terry moved to New York City to finish high school there, things being difficult for us in New Canaan. Soon our mom—for reasons of health and self-preservation, as I have come to understand only recently—moved out of the house on Lakeview Avenue, too, leaving me and my little sister there on our own.

8. ‘Everyone’s Movie Theater’: New Canaan Playhouse Reopens to High Praise (July 8)

Exactly halfway down Elm Street a historic landmark has been given new life. The New Canaan Playhouse Theater’s doors finally reopened following a four-plus-year closure. “We are thrilled that after two years and a lot of hard work and commitment from the taxpayers and private investors, New Canaan now has a beautiful, state-of-the-art theater right at the 50 yard line,” New Canaan Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Laura Budd said.

7. New Canaan Teen Launches Portable Pizzeria (June 24)

Augusto Baldini, 17, a pure-blooded Italian who graduated from New Canaan High School two weeks ago, half-seriously proposed the idea of a portable pizzeria business with his family several weeks ago. He’d been cooking pizza for in their wood-fired oven on the patio, as they like to do in the summer, and innocently asked, “What if I started this pizza business where I went house-to-house and made pizzas for people?”

6. Affordable Housing: New Canaan Housing Authority Purchases ‘Avalon’ Complex for $75 Million (Nov. 6)

The New Canaan Housing Authority last week closed on the approximately $75 million acquisition of a 104-unit apartment complex on Lakeview Avenue. What locals have long known as the “Avalon” property, a 9.1-acre parcel whose closest neighbors include Lakeview Cemetery, Mill Pond and Canaan Parish, will be known in the future as “Riverwood at New Canaan,” according to Housing Authority Chair Scott Hobbs.

5. LiveGirl Marks 10 Years (June 6)

Maggie Murphy remembers thinking as a fifth-grader that Camp LiveGirl “was just going to be like every other summer camp.” A New Canaan High School senior set to graduate next week and attend the University of Michigan in the fall, Murphy recalled that she only knew that there would be sports and activities there. “What I definitely did not expect was that she [LiveGirl founder and CEO Sheri West] would bring in so many powerful speakers, so we had exposure to so many different empowering women,” Murphy recalled.

4. New Canaan Man, 80, Charged with Voyeurism, Stalking (Oct. 8)

New Canaan Police on Sept. 27 arrested an 80-year-old Avalon Drive man by warrant following multiple complaints from a female neighbor about stalking incidents stretching back to May.

3. ‘A Truly Loving Kid’: Hundreds Attend Elliott Kropf’s Funeral Service (Sept. 23)

Elliott Kropf’s friends say he often was one of the first people to greet new kids at school, Monsignor Rob Kinnally, pastor of Saint Aloysius Parish, said Monday morning. The New Canaan High School senior also was a person who remained loyal to his friends “when it might be easier not to,” Kinnally told a standing-room-only crowd several rows deep, gathered for the teenager’s funeral Mass.

2. New Canaan Sees Major Flooding, Property Damage Amid Heavy Rainfall (Aug. 18)

Consistently heavy rains on Sunday led to flooding of residences, road closures, overflowing ponds and rivers and property damage across New Canaan, where a National Weather Service-issued flood watch remains in effect through 2 a.m. Monday. 

1. ‘A Better Chance for Me’: ABC Marks 50 Years in New Canaan (April 23)

Terry Trusty came to New Canaan late in the summer of 1974, a 15-year-old from Freeman, Va.—a small town in the segregated South dotted with tobacco farms. He’d grown up proud that his father and grandfather purchased the family home using the G.I. Bill. “That was a wonderful thing,” he told NewCanaanite.com on a recent morning. “They had a 26-acre farm there. We had a nice house. Didn’t have any running water. No bathroom inside, so we had an outhouse.” He showed promise in school and, in seventh grade, recalled a teacher telling the class that “Harvard is the best.” “Somehow that struck a chord with me,” Trusty recalled. “It’s almost as if I heard, ‘That’s where you’re meant to go. That’s where you’ve got to go. You don’t know how to do it, but you’ve got to be there.’ ”