Over the past year, we’ve spent an enormous amount of time writing about two topics: the Broad Street Market fire and homelessness.
You may not know that, though, judging from your clicks.
Our readers always surprise us, and 2023 was no exception. Sure, you read our hard news, eat-your-broccoli-type content. But you were just as likely (maybe more) to click on less-serious stuff like restaurant and business stories.
Hey, that’s why we serve up a varied menu here at TheBurg. Local news should reflect the wide range of what’s happening in a community.
So, as we wrap up 2023, here’s our annual review of the top-10 most-read stories of the past year, as tallied by your page views from our website.
No. 10. Governor’s Islands. Back in 2022, our most-read story came as a big surprise to me. In August of that year, we reported that two large mudflats in the middle of the Susquehanna River—Independence Island and Bailey’s Island—were up for sale after more than a century in the same family. Everyone wanted to know: who would buy these unbuildable mosquito nests? In 2023, we found out. In early February, we broke the news that the commonwealth, specifically the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, had purchased the pair for $160,000 in order to conserve the land and keep it public. This island news was not No. 1 again this year, but it still ranked highly, clocking in as our 10th most-read story of the year.
No. 9. Sip on This. Every year, one story vastly exceeds our expectations. Often, this is a rather basic item that we think will have only smallish community interest—and then, to our total surprise, it blows up. In 2023, that story was our March online article about the first-ever SoMa Sips Beer, Wine & Spirits Festival. The story was a brief, just-the-facts-ma’am preview of a booze-based block party slated for late April in downtown Harrisburg. Why did the story prove to be so popular? Your guess is as good as mine, though my guess is, well, all the booze.
No. 8. Friends & Family. Each year, our online-only stories, as opposed to our print magazine stories, dominate the most-read list. Likely, this is because readers have just one option for our web-only content—it’s online or nothing. But, also each year, one or two magazine stories slide into the most-read list online. In 2023, that story was our November feature on Pal’s Apparel, a Harrisburg streetwear shop. In it, our city reporter Maddie Gittens told the story of how family and friends stepped in to run Pal’s after the sudden death of the store’s beloved owner, Moe Rammouni. On a personal note, this may be my favorite Burg story of the past year.
No. 7. Pizza Pass. After all these years in journalism, I still get a little thrill when we beat other news outlets to a story. It actually happens quite a lot, often because we’re out there walking the streets everyday—and we notice things. For instance, one day last March, I was strolling by Cork & Fork downtown when I saw something in the window—a PA Liquor Control Board sign indicating a change of ownership. After a couple of calls, we learned that Millworks owner Josh Kesler was buying the business and the building. This little bit of news about a very popular restaurant came in hot, claiming a top spot on our most-read list.
No. 6. Danger Zone. Unfortunately, our most-read list this year had several bleak spots. In late December 2022, a bicyclist was struck and killed at the intersection of Cameron and Paxton streets, marking the fourth pedestrian or biking death near that intersection over a three-year period. As a result, the local biking community held a vigil for the victim and deployed a “ghost bike” to mark the fatality, which was the basis of our news feature. To be honest, this wasn’t technically a 2023 story. We published it on Dec. 28 of last year, a day after we posted our most-read list for last year. That last week of 2022 proved to be unusually busy news-wise, as the same fate befell our No. 2 story.
No. 5. No Soup for You. Seemingly forever, a classic American diner stood near the corner of Herr Street and Arsenal Boulevard. In fact, when I came to Harrisburg, I ate one of my first meals there. A few years ago, the diner changed ownership then closed and then stood empty. Last September, we reported that a new property owner planned to remove the diner to expand a nearby gas station and convenience store. I guess I’m not the only person in the area with memories of the former American Dream Diner, as our brief story about the project zipped up the charts to land at No. 5 for the year.
No. 4. Restaurant Rebrand. When a business lasts long enough, it becomes part of the fabric of a neighborhood. Such was the case with the Vietnamese Garden at 3rd and Reily streets in Midtown, which opened about 20 years ago. So, when we saw a new sign go up on the building, we had to find out what was happening. As it turned out, the news wasn’t so much a change of ownership as a change of generations. The owners’ son had taken over, in the process updating the interior and changing the name to The LA Squared. Our May story gained a ton of readers and social media shares, showing that the restaurant, in fact, had become a local favorite.
No. 3. Up in Smoke. In 2023, we wrote dozens of stories about the Broad Street Market following the devastating July fire, covering everything from the temporary market to the fate of the vendors to the community impact. Many of these stories were widely read, but only our first, brief, early-morning article about the fire itself made the top-10. If I had one New Year’s wish for Harrisburg, it would be that, in 2024, the negative market news reverses, with the good making the bad a distant memory.
No. 2. Another Slice. So, this has never happened before—two stories on essentially the same topic made our top-10 list for 2023. As mentioned above, the sale of the Harrisburg location of Cork & Fork was our seventh most-popular online story of the year—well, the west shore location did even better. We also broke this story, that the Cork & Fork ownership group had sold the “Osteria” in Hampden Township to Harrisburg restaurateur Brian Fertenbaugh. This news was sliced just right and became the year’s No. 2 most popular story—well sort of. Technically, this also was a 2022 story, as we published it on Dec. 30, several days after we (mistakenly) thought we were done for the year and posted our top-10 list.
No. 1. Night News. For the past few years, restaurateur Justin Browning has been on a tear. He first opened his downtown alt-pub, JB Lovedraft’s, then his brewery/restaurant/venue on the west shore, then his Broad Street Market stand and, finally, his 2nd Street nightclub. It was the last one, deemed “Nocturnal,” that became our No. 1 most-read story of the year. Would I have predicted this? Well, business-opening stories tend to do well, especially when we break them. But 21,000-plus page views? Total surprise.
For a different take on 2023, I will have my annual list of top local news stories in the January magazine, which drops on Dec. 28. Does my list differ from that of our readers, who voted with their clicks? Return on Thursday to find out!
Lawrance Binda is publisher/editor of TheBurg.
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