Year in Review (2015)

Happy 2016! Let's look back on the previous year.

 
The Year in Review: 2015
by Joanna Wilson

Before moving on with new content, Brit and I are looking back over the previous year.  For the past three years, we created lists of our most popular 2012 posts, most popular 2013 posts, and the most popular in 2014. So I'd like to once again, create a list for my top 5 most popular posts.  Click on the titles for the link to return to each of these posts.  How many of these posts from 2015 do you remember reading?

Next week I'll create a second list, one consisting of the most popular guest blog posts of 2015.  Thanks for joining me on this journey and giving me an excuse to meet some wonderful people throughout The Empire.

1. National Hamburger Festival 2015 (from August)

The summer street festival on Main Street each year is a popular event--with fries on the side. This past year's festival tried something new: a craft beer and indie band showcase. There was a new record set for attendance!  Sure hope they repeat that successful addition in 2016.

Girl in White (1901) by William Merritt Chase.  This reproduction was on Main Street across from Cilantro with Inside|Out.

2. Inside|Out with the Akron Art Museum (from April)

One Sunday last April, I got in the car and located several of the first installations of the outdoor art project Inside|Out. If you'll remember, the first series included 30 reproductions located in North Hill, the Towpath and MetroParks, and across downtown. Then later in the summer, the same pieces were moved to different neighborhoods--Cuyahoga Falls, Highland Square, and the University of Akron. What a fun project! And, it was an all-new way of interacting with art pieces from the Akron Art Museum's permanent collection.  I can't wait to see what the Inside|Out program does in 2016.

3. Akron History: Lawson's Chip Dip (from May)

I wrote a series of Akron history essays for the new arts & culture magazine The Devil Strip last year and shared them here on my website as well. What is an Akron party without Lawson's chip dip--am I right? This third most popular post from 2015 tells me that I wasn't the only one who was curious about the origins of Lawson's.

4. The Devil Strip and Its Kickstarter Campaign (from March)

Wow! Was this just one year ago? Akronite Chris Horne started his new arts & culture magazine The Devil Strip last March and launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund refurbished newspaper boxes to help distribute it.  Were you one of its supporters? Those boxes are coming soon--in the meantime I've made it a habit of picking my Devil Strip up inside the Akron Art Museum.  Where do you find your copy to read?

(Thanks Unbox for the photo!)

5. New Book: The Story of Archie the Talking Snowman (from July)

Get it--Christmas in July? Yeah, this popular post from last summer was an announcement about my latest book project and the book release party. This was the second local history/nostalgia book I wrote (I'm also the co-author of A is for Akron from 2014). Still need to get a copy of the book? Akron history is relevant year round. Go get yourself a book!

Thanks for reading. I'm excited to bring you another year's worth of essays. Happy New Year Akron!