Your top stories of the year!
HINT: You all love your celebs. And real estate.
The Dispatch team is going to take a few days off to toast 2026 in style. Enjoy today’s post — and we’ll see you on the flipside. Thank you so much for making 2025 one we’ll never forget.
After going hard for more than two months straight, for Labor Day the still-brand-new Dispatch scheduled a Top 10 post (by views) and took the day off. So for New Year’s, we took a peek at our stories since then.
Here’s our new Top 10 list — since September 1 — chosen by you, our readers.
Keep reading!
What you’re reading (are you surprised by the No. 1 story?!)
📚 No. 10
When Taylor Swift’s docuseries The End of an Era dropped in early December, the world over seemingly wanted to know which book she was listening to in the first episode. It quickly came out that T-Swift was listening to a novel that not only took place near Saratoga — in the Adirondacks — but it mentions the Spa City a fair amount. Exciting!
🏆 No. 9
When Saratoga was mentioned on SportsCenter, your interest was piqued.
🏠 No. 8
Real estate for the win!
🏈 No. 7
Girls in football? You’d better believe it — and at state, too.
🎤 No. 6
Some stories are just too juicy to resist.
World-famous rock star disses Saratoga Springs in his new memoir
🐴 No. 5
You get us. You really get us.
🟦 No. 4
This one certainly got you all talking!
🍋🟩 No. 3
This isn’t the only legal trouble going down on Caroline Street right now, but it is one that the Dispatch broke first.
📷 No. 2
This collab is just getting started, so it’s thrilling to see these pics come in at No. 2 — plus, the photos were taken at the Dispatch’s very first event, which sold out!
📺 No. 1
The No. 1 story had it all: a Saratogian’s name in lights, a hit TV show — and the intro to the local celeb who came in at No. 2. (Because who doesn’t like to look for themselves in photos?)
Saratogian in ‘Stranger Things.’
🏅Honorable mention
It was still picking up steam as I wrote this (and not quite in the Top 10), trying to get ahead of the game before a holiday travel day. But the following heartwarming story from Friday’s snowstorm has officially cracked the Top 10 and is still rising. I love that.
✈️ Race to birth: soon-to-be first-time dad trapped on tarmac at ALB
ICYMI…
📣Steve speaks! My cofounder and I talk breakup, AI and the future of your local journalism
📚Top 3 early 2026 books by local authors to pre-order now
🌲How your tree (and you!) can be part of Dancing Grain’s Disco Inferno Jan. 10