The Post’s award-winning series, In the Studio, continued in 2024 with a stunning video about a master ceramicist who is one of the last remaining Cambodians to carry on the ancient artistic tradition of his native country.
The video was even shown all the way across the country, on a PBS station in Lowell, Mass., where Yary Livan lives. He had visited Long Beach last spring to share his art with Vanndearlyn Vong, a rising artist in Long Beach.
For this year’s installment of Haunted Long Beach, we visited an extravagantly ghoulish haunted house that springs up each year thanks to countless hours of work from one man, his family and a crew of drama students.
After Labor Day each year, Robert Duck breaks out the drill and glue gun to transform his front yard and driveway into Fairbrook Manor — a haunted outdoor labyrinth featuring volunteer actors from local schools.
We also ate a lot of food this year as part of another series, Side StrEATs, which features some of the city’s best chefs, including Emerson Baja, who regularly sells out of his signature Lumpia.
At the start of 2024, we visited a new playground at The Boys & Girls Club made out of recycled toys and other plastics, erected on what was before a dirt lot in front of the building. This heart-warming video looked at how much play and companionship means to kids who are receiving medical treatment.
Pastry chef Cecilia Tolone baked almost 800 semlor at a pop-up in Belmont Shore last February. The traditional Swedish sweet bun is flavored with cardamom, a sweet almond paste and freshly whipped cream. Yum.
We went back for more Filipino food, visiting Eugene Santiago, who has a passion for using farm-fresh create food under the name Baryo, which can be found at Union@Compound, a restaurant accompanying an art gallery on Coronado Avenue just south of East 14th Street.