December 30, 2004-January 5, 2005

cover story

What Happened Next?

We revisit our biggest stories of 2004.

In the grand scheme of things, 2004 is an old acquaintance that — come this weekend — should be forgot except, of course, for red staters and Red Sox fans, for whom it was the year to end all years. Morale-breaking elections, apocalypse-beckoning wars and life-affirming World Series victories aside, historians won't have to dedicate much effort to studying the past 366 days when they get around to updating their U.S. tomes. (We know what you're thinking, that the Fifth Crusade, aka Dubya's Iraq War, is a harbinger of the collapse of Western civilization. Allow us to retort that if you're right, well, there won't be much use for U.S. history books, now will there?) Rather than getting bogged down in Doomsday predictions, however, let's do what Philadelphians do best: Get parochial.

It was anything but boring around our fair city. City Paper knows this because over the course of the past few weeks, our crack team of writers has gone back through the archives to take another look at the stories that mattered most to you.

From young coma patients and unsolved crimes to unprecedented arts festivals and bread-busting trends, we returned our attention to people and subjects that appeared in our pages over the course of the past year to answer one simple question: What happened next?

Here's what we learned.

—Brian Hickey

— Respond to this article in our Forums — click to jump there