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Educational play spaces were built at two North Philly affordable housing sites. Could they inspire similar projects nationwide?

Regina Robinson isn’t used to being asked what she wants out of her home.

But for about a year, architects and designers had detailed discussions with her and other tenants at the Susquehanna Square subsidized apartment community in North Philadelphia about how to transform the look and feel of the development.

Robinson and her now 8-year-old daughter, Faith, went to every meeting. Residents talked about their love of graphic novels and the inspiration they found in superheroes — not just those who can fly, but real people they saw making a difference in their own families and communities.

Blank white walls in apartment hallways became canvases for colorful murals of people in capes meant to inspire children and adults to have self-confidence and set goals. A previously unused bike shed now stores bikes but is also a stage for acting out stories and a puzzle wall for spelling words. In courtyards, residents got new places to sit that double as little libraries. Prompts ask them to think about the books they read and create characters and stories of their own.

“They really listened to us. … They were taking our ideas and they actually brought it to life,” Robinson, 52, said. “It really brought tears to my eyes.”

A mural asks “What is your superpower?” in the hallway of an apartment building in the Susquehanna Square development in North Philadelphia.

The project was an initiative of Playful Learning Landscapes, cofounded in Philadelphia in 2009 by Temple University professor Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and University of Delaware professor Roberta Michnick Golinkoff. The organization has brought the concept of playful learning — engaging children and their caregivers in skill-building lessons through play — to spaces such as laundromats, parks, grocery stores, sidewalks, and subway stops.

But installations at two sites in North Philadelphia are the organization’s first that bring playful learning to subsidized housing. And the organization and its partners hope the Live and Learn pilot will lead to similar projects across the country that help vulnerable children catch up to peers who have access to more educational opportunities.

The goal is to incorporate playful learning into all subsidized housing developments, said architect Heidi Segall Levy, project manager of the Live and Learn initiative and an associate at Watchdog, a Philadelphia-based real estate consulting firm.

“We were really trying to increase educational equity,” she said. “And the way to do that is to really bring it into [people’s] homes.”

Architect Heidi Segall Levy, manager of the Live and Learn project, shows a mural by Linda Fernandez and Martha O’Connell from Amber Art & Design, at one of the educational play spaces at 2000 Ridge Ave.

About playful learning

Adults might not immediately understand what playful learning is until they’re reminded of childhood games.

Take Simon Says, for example. Children learn to retain information, evaluate the directions they’re given, and follow through. I Spy helps children learn how to describe their surroundings. Matching games strengthen memory and help kids recognize patterns.

Playful Learning Landscapes wants to transform any space where children and caregivers spend time into somewhere they can engage with each other. The organization has dozens of installations in Philadelphia and projects in about 30 U.S. cities and about 10 countries.

Now an activity hub, this transformed bike shed invites children and caregivers to draw, act, and tell stories together. Interactive puzzles, a chalkboard, and a small stage surround a multi-seat bench that doubles as a learning prompt and bookshelf.

One goal of the Live and Learn pilot was to train housing providers to continue the work.

“Our hope in the future is that developers and designers will be thinking about how to build playful learning into the architecture,” Segall Levy said. And eventually, “playful learning will just be included in public space design.”

Most of the pilot’s funding came from the William Penn Foundation, which contributed $647,250.

The foundation has invested about $26 million in playful learning projects in Philadelphia over the last decade and wants to see playful learning elements become standard in recreation centers, parks, libraries, and other places, said executive director Shawn McCaney.

“We believe every neighborhood should have access to high-quality public spaces” that can support community building, safety, and children’s development, McCaney said. “These kinds of spaces can become really important points of pride and engagement in communities.”

Super at Susquehanna Square

David La Fontaine, who recently retired as executive director of the nonprofit housing developer Community Ventures, was immediately interested when he was approached about adding playful learning to his Susquehanna Square apartment complex.

“A program that helps young kids in school was really what made me most interested,” La Fontaine, the son of a public schoolteacher, said.

Residents at Susquehanna Square spin the wheel to discover their superpower — a feature of the Book Nook. This custom Playful Learning installation is designed to create a sense of arrival while encouraging reading and social connection.

Community members’ vision came to life with the help of KSS Architects.

Susquehanna Square resident Merlyn DeJesus, 61, likes to sit in her building’s backyard and take in what the space has become. Young residents now have things to do when they go outside. They draw on a chalkboard, spin the letter tiles of a puzzle, and turn wheels to create their own superheroes.

DeJesus and her 8-year-old granddaughter read books together from the little library, where community members can take and leave titles. Her granddaughter also helped paint superhero murals, which are on each of her building’s three floors.

It all makes the space feel “more homey,” DeJesus said.

“I feel proud inviting people to come to my home,” she said.

Merlyn DeJesus, a resident of the Susquehanna Square subsidized housing development in North Philadelphia, points to one of the murals painted in her apartment building as part of the Live and Learn project.

Transforming community spaces

Playful Learning Landscapes focuses on tailoring projects for specific communities based on extensive outreach.

For example, residents in the Sharswood area of North Philadelphia noted that nearby Ridge Avenue has lots of fast-moving traffic. So they said they wanted their children to learn about street safety in the Live and Learn project that was focused on subsidized homes developed by Pennrose in partnership with the Philadelphia Housing Authority.

Children in Sharswood “run the road” along a new Playful Learning track painted on the sidewalk of a Pennrose housing development.

At the “Run the Road” installation, a colorful street is painted on a sidewalk. Children can spin traffic signs and learn what “yield,” “keep right,” and “one way” mean. They learn about crosswalks. They can step on animal prints and walk like the creatures.

Residents also said they didn’t have open space they could enjoy. So the Live and Learn project transformed a small strip of unused land into a pocket park. It has seating and a little library. There’s a puzzle and matching game and wheels children can turn to create their own animals and tell stories based on their creations.

A pocket park is one of the educational play spaces that the Live and Learn initiative brought to a subsidized housing community in the Sharswood area of North Philadelphia.

Darnetta Arce, executive director and founder of the Lower North Philadelphia Community Development Corp., said the space has become a safe, peaceful place for neighborhood residents.

“Anytime you take blighted property and change it into a beautiful play and sitting area, I think that’s great,” she said. “There is no longer an eyesore in this community.”

Inside the community room of a new subsidized apartment building at 2000 Ridge Ave., what was originally going to be a blank white wall became a mural featuring a map of the neighborhood with cultural landmarks. The room also features tabletops with activities, such as chess, matching games, word games, and storytelling prompts.

A young Sharswood resident explores a custom-designed Playful Learning chess table in the community room of a Pennrose housing development. The table is one of six navigation stations that help children build skills through play where they live.

Architecture firm WRT worked on the installations. Associate Lizzie Rothwell has been an architect for more than 15 years and said she doesn’t usually get so much breathing room to collaborate with community members.

“Within my professional career, it was a pretty unique opportunity,” Rothwell said. “It was one of the more rewarding experiences I’ve had working with a community on a design.”

A forgotten strip of land wedged between housing developments on 22nd Street between Ingersoll and Master Streets in Sharswood is now “The Backyard,” designed with Playful Learning installations, including this Critter Creator, two nature-themed standing puzzles, and a little library with a built-in I Spy game.

Looking ahead

Now, Playful Learning Landscapes wants to pursue public policies that support the expansion of playful learning projects and provide incentives for developers and architects to incorporate this work into their plans, said Sarah Lytle, the organization’s executive director.

Playful learning advocates briefed City Council members this fall about their work. In September, the city’s Department of Planning and Development issued a call for proposals to create or preserve affordable housing and encouraged developers to include art or design elements that foster children’s development.

“We’re starting to see some traction,” Lytle said.

More than seven months after the opening of the play spaces at Susquehanna Square, Robinson and her daughter now live in South Philadelphia, but they’ve come back to visit the murals they helped paint and the installations they helped develop.

“To see it and to know it’s going to always be there,” Robinson said, “it brings a lot of joy to me.”

The “Run the Road” installation on a sidewalk at 2045 Master St. teaches children in Sharswood about traffic rules.

January 21, 2026
Mice, graffiti, and broken bathrooms: Teachers and parents sound an alarm about building conditions at this Philly school

The Philadelphia School District is poised to announce soon which of its aging buildings it will fix up and which it might close, or consolidate, or reimagine in the coming years.

But teachers and parents at one South Philadelphia elementary school say they cannot wait for help and have appealed to Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr., Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, and others.

“Southwark School is desperately in need of changes,” a letter signed by 300 people and sent to Watlington and Parker on Friday read. “Our children are learning in an unhealthy environment that no child should have to experience.”

In many ways, Southwark, a K-8 facility constructed in 1905, is a thriving school — it has strong academics, a diverse student body of about 900, a dual language immersion program, and a robust complement of activities. Southwark is a community school, with city-paid resources including free before- and after-school care.

Mayor Cherelle Parker and Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. visit a classroom at Southwark Elementary to discuss the city’s extended day extended year programming in this 2024 file photo.

But it also has issues including bathrooms that “break down nearly every day,” the letter said. “The plumbing has gotten so bad that sewage comes dripping down from the ceiling into classrooms.”

The letter outlined other issues including a rampant bug and rodent problem, a stairwell covered in graffiti and trash, dank hallways, a lack of adequate ventilation, and more.

“Our children tell us that classrooms feel like prisons because the windows can’t be opened fully and they have opaque coverings,” the letter read.

Nyera Parks, a Southwark second-grade teacher, said she doesn’t think the community is asking for too much.

“These conditions are affecting the children’s health, their focus, their sense of safety,” Parks said. “It’s the bare minimum — we’re asking for a clean and safe school.”

Responding to teacher and parent concerns, district chief operating officer Teresa Fleming said in a letter sent Monday the school system “has already taken concrete action to address conditions at Southwark while continuing to plan for sustained improvement.”

Fixes Fleming cited include “mass” trapping, plaster and plumbing work, and adjustments to the cleaning staff.

Some staff have reported “visible improvement in cleanliness and operational response,” Fleming wrote in the letter to State Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler (D., Philadelphia). “At the same time, we recognize that some of Southwark’s challenges are rooted in aging infrastructure and require longer-term planning. My team is developing an actionable plan that includes feasibility reviews of plumbing systems, HVAC needs, and cafeteria kitchen capacity, with attention to major shared spaces, including the gymnasium, cafeteria, and auditorium.”

Southwark, according to data released by the district this summer, is in “poor” building condition. It is also operating at 104% of its building capacity.

Fleming said the school “will likely receive facility enhancements” through the forthcoming facilities master planning process.

‘It shouldn’t have to be like this’

The first thing Jennifer O’Shaughnessy, a teacher and part of the morning care staff, does when she gets to Southwark early is pick up trash. Then, when she gets to the cafeteria, where kids will eat breakfast, she grabs wipes to clear the mouse droppings that have accumulated overnight.

At least once a week, O’Shaughnessy said, “the kids are eating breakfast and we see a mouse come out, and then they’re standing up, screaming. We tell them it’s going to be OK, but it shouldn’t have to be like this.”

O’Shaughnessy has worked at Southwark for 15 years and is now the upper school coordinator, teaching writing and a elective and supporting other educators. She loves the school so much she sends her own daughter to Southwark.

But it troubles her that because of the old heating system, the school’s classrooms are either freezing or so hot students sometimes get nosebleeds.

“I’ve had teachers take their kids into the hallway because it’s too hot in their classrooms,” O’Shaughnessy said. “It’s 80, 90 degrees in there, and you can’t think. And when the heat is not on, it’s freezing and you have students with winter jackets on.”

City demographics and Southwark’s burgeoning popularity have brought new life to the school, but have also strained the building.

Bathrooms are a particular issue. The restrooms that get the most use are in the basement, near the cafeteria. But those bathrooms are frequently closed because of plumbing issues and other problems.

Last month, a student told O’Shaughnessy they couldn’t use the bathroom because no toilets were working. There had been no news of a closure, so O’Shaughnessy went in to investigate.

“Every toilet was running over,” she said. “I went in there and almost lost my lunch. They had taped off half the stalls because flood water was running over. The other toilets were clogged.”

O’Shaughnessy had the bathroom shut down, leaving a common problem — there are a few other bathrooms, but not enough to accommodate the large student population’s needs.

‘It’s still a mess’

Appealing to the superintendent and mayor was not the teachers’ and parents’ first move. They worked within the system, staff said, putting in countless work orders and making more direct appeals to district officials.

Southwark recently got a permanent building engineer — that has helped some, said Justin Guida, the school’s STEM teacher, but the problems can never be rectified by one employee.

“We get a little Band-Aid here and there, it looks like they helped, but it’s still a mess,” said Guida, who lives in the neighborhood and has worked at Southwark for 10 years. “When the kids complain because of the bathrooms or the food or the bugs or mice, it breaks my heart. The kids say, ‘I love Southwark, but it’s dirty.’”

Southwark teachers say that school material often get ruined by rodents.

“We’re growing plants as a science experiment, and the plants get destroyed because they’re getting eaten by the mice,” Guida said.

Guida knows the district has billions in unmet facilities needs, but the changes Southwark needs are not all costly, he said.

“Can the windows get uncovered so we can see out them and have natural light come in? Can we clean the fire towers that our kids have to walk through?” he asked.

Parks, the second-grade teacher, is frustrated by air filters that do not get changed, especially given the high rates of asthma among Southwark children.

In 2023, Southwark was temporarily closed because of damaged asbestos, with the school split between South Philadelphia High and Childs Elementary. The damaged asbestos was removed, but Parks and others worry about the asbestos that remains in the building.

Parks attended Southwark as a child and is dismayed that her second graders may not be having the same experience she had as a student. She never had sewage leaking from bathrooms into her classroom, or had lessons interrupted by a mouse scurrying across the floor.

“I remember feeling safe there,” she said. “Some of the things that I’m seeing in the building now are not how I saw and experienced it when I was there. How are they able to learn and feel comfortable in these types of conditions?”

Parks and others who signed the letter to Watlington and Parker have asked for fixes including repainting hallways, ensuring every classroom has a working lock, and guaranteeing that stairways and outdoor areas will be regularly cleaned, that every room has air-conditioning and regular air filter changes, and that there are specific plans for long-term bathroom repairs.

Fiedler said that she appreciated Fleming’s response, but that Southwark’s conditions generally “are a major concern.”

“We know that there’s many years of deferred maintenance in the School District of Philadelphia and across the commonwealth,” Fiedler said. “I think this is a really good, really sad, and scary example of a place where more needs to be invested.”

January 21, 2026
This Philly charter is starting its own college so kids can graduate with high school diplomas and college credits — for free

A Philadelphia charter school is building its own college.

Students at the Philadelphia Performing Arts Charter School, a K-12 facility of about 2,500 with campuses in South Philadelphia and Center City, should soon be able to graduate with high school diplomas and 60 college credits — for free.

PPACS is not the only early college in the city — the Philadelphia School District has Parkway Center City Middle College, and other schools allow students to take college courses while in high school. Some schools offer dual enrollment, and a new early college charter will open in the city in the fall.

But instead of partnering with existing colleges, String Theory, the education management organization that runs PPACS, is in the process of opening its own degree-granting institution.

String Theory College will focus on design, technology, and entrepreneurship, offering PPACS students more flexibility than prior dual-enrollment partners had, said Jason Corosanite, the college president. Students won’t have to leave the school’s Vine Street campus to attend classes, either.

“The whole goal is to get all kids prepared for college, with as many college credits as possible,” Corosanite said.

The college already has Pennsylvania Department of Education approval, and its Middle States Commission on Higher Education accreditation vote is scheduled for March, commission officials said. Once schools are candidates for accreditation, that opens up college transferability, student loans, and Pell grant opportunities, though PPACS students pay no tuition because the school is a publicly funded charter.

Corosanite said he is confident the school will gain Middle States approval and ultimately be able to offer students associate’s degrees.

With Philadelphia’s crowded higher education market and a looming college enrollment cliff, it’s fair to question whether the city needs more degree-granting institutions, said Shaun Harper, a professor of education, public policy, and business at the University of Southern California. Some would say it does not.

But, Harper said, “if this new creation is going to expand access and make higher ed more affordable, I think that is a spectacular thing. We need more innovative models in education that create more seamless pipelines from high school to college.”

Harper’s research once centered on the experiences of high-achieving Black and Latino boys in New York schools who, once in college, “suddenly they realized that they were not as prepared for college as they had been led to believe by their high school teachers and by the grades they received in high school.”

That makes Harper consider whether String Theory students “are really going to be pushed to do college-level work, and perform like college students would otherwise be able to perform? I think that is a thing to be concerned about.”

Ultimately, Harper said, he is intrigued by the model.

“There’s a real opportunity for [String Theory] to ensure that they are providing the right kinds of professional learning and professional development experiences for these educators, so they amass the skills that will be able to make the curriculum much more complex, much more college-level,” Harper said. “They may have a real shot here at teaching the rest of the nation something that ultimately becomes replicable.”

High school and college in one stop

The seeds of the idea trace back to PPACS’ first high school graduates — the Class of 2017.

When Corosanite and other String Theory officials tracked those students, “some of our best and brightest kids were dropping out of college because of cost,” he said. “It wasn’t because they couldn’t do it. They were looking at the value proposition of these schools and dropping out. I felt the burden of, ‘We’re telling all these kids, yeah, you have to go to college,’ and then they graduate and can’t afford life. How do we solve for that?”

Enter String Theory College.

The program is already underway — about 40 students who participated in a pilot program are on track to graduate with college credits in June, and about 40 more are in 11th grade now.

The college will initially be open only to students enrolled in PPACS. Going forward, every 11th- and 12th-grade honors and Advanced Placement course at the school will be a college-level course, and the PPACS faculty who teach the courses are college faculty.

Course offerings include multivariable calculus, linear algebra, biotechnology, entrepreneurship, and design.

Students still have access to the trappings of high school: All non-honors classes are still within the PPACS confines. And students must still meet state requirements for their high school diplomas — they are learning math, but it might be a design-focused math class, for instance.

“Kids still have their high school experience — they still come to school on time, they still go to the lunchroom with everybody they go to school with,” Corosanite said. “They still see their friends, they still have prom, but they also have college. It makes it a lot easier.”

There is no budget impact for PPACS, Corosanite said. The school, which as a charter is independently run and publicly funded, pays the college a per-credit hour rate that is roughly equivalent to community college, and that money covers teachers’ salaries and benefits.

“We’re trying to be as efficient as possible with the classes the teachers have, and the college is in our building,” he said. “We’ve designed it to be cost-neutral. This is not a moneymaker — it’s mission-driven.”

Going forward, Corosanite dreams of a graduate school of education — String Theory already offers continuing education for teachers — and offering college courses to other schools and districts.

‘This is a good opportunity’

Hasim Smith, a PPACS senior, was pitched on the idea of taking college classes in high school when he was a 10th grader.

Smith’s dad had heard about the pilot program and urged his son to go for it.

“He said, ‘This is a good opportunity. I don’t want you to miss out on it,’” Smith said. “I like to challenge myself and do things that other people see as hard. And I like that it’s free — it helps with college costs.”

Smith was game and now, at age 18, he’s looking forward to collecting his high school diploma and transferring dozens of credits to another college. (He’s already been accepted to 10 and is awaiting more decisions.)

The courses are challenging, he said, but manageable, especially with his teachers’ support. He’s enjoyed the design challenges in particular, Smith said.

“We had to learn a lot — it gets really deep. We have to learn about design, and different theories, and entrepreneurship,” Smith said.

He had always thought he might want to pursue nursing as a career, but his String Theory college experience has him also considering architecture, he said.

How to apply

The college-in-a-high-school program has a limited number of slots for students who will be in 10th through 12th grade for the 2026-27 school year, and is accepting applications for those seats and for its incoming ninth-grade class.

The school’s application deadline is Jan. 30.

January 20, 2026
Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to Philly students in 1967. These men say it influenced the rest of their lives.

The limousine door burst open, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of Dennis Kemp’s South Philadelphia school.

Kemp was 13 that day in October 1967, a member of the stage crew and the basketball team asked by the principal of Barratt Junior High to greet the school’s surprise special guest.

“In just about every Black household that I went into those days, there were three pictures hanging: Jesus, John Kennedy, and Dr. King,” said Kemp, now 72. “To actually meet this guy, it just blew me away.”

King’s historic speech, made six months before he was assassinated, had a profound effect on Kemp and many of the 800 students crowded into the school auditorium.

“What is your life’s blueprint?” King asked the students. “This is a most important and crucial period of your lives, for what you do now and what you decide now at this age may well determine which way your life shall go.”

The community will mark the historic moment Monday, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, with a showing of the speech in the auditorium of the school now known as Childs Elementary, then a day of service projects inside the building. One group hopes to apply to have a historical marker commemorating the visit placed outside the school.

Kemp is glad that people still view and discuss King’s speech. Although he was a child, he sensed that he was part of something significant.

Though nearly 1,000 students had packed into the Barratt auditorium, crowding into aisles and leaning over balconies, the room was silent save for King’s voice, Ben Farnese, then the school’s principal, told The Inquirer in 2006. In a nearby overflow room, 450 more students watched King on closed-circuit TV.

“I took it in,” said Kemp, who was in the auditorium. “I said, ‘I’m going to keep this with me as long as I live.’”

Charles Carter, a ninth grader who was in the auditorium, remembers the quiet.

“Just figure — kids can be a little rowdy,” Carter said. “But we were transfixed, we were glued. We weren’t rowdy that day.”

Jeffrey Miles, another Barratt student, had a good seat that day. He had heard a speaker was coming to school, and he was excited — he thought it might be Georgie Woods, the prominent DJ.

After he heard King speak, he couldn’t help himself.

“I had the end seat, and I jumped up out of my seat,” said Miles, who had turned 14 a few weeks before King spoke. “The speech was so exhilarating and so electrifying, I couldn’t control myself. He was walking down the aisle with [DJ] Georgie Woods, and I said, ‘Dr. King, can I shake your hand?’”

King said yes. Miles grabbed his hand, which was sweaty — a detail that sticks in his mind, along with the sound of the Barratt students clapping thunderously for King.

A belief in ‘somebodiness’

King was in town for a “Stars for Freedom” show at the new Spectrum, opened the prior month in South Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia Daily News recounted Martin Luther King Jr.’s visit to Barratt Junior High in October, 1967.

“I know you’ve heard of that new impressive structure called the Spectrum, and I know you’ve heard of Harry Belafonte and Aretha Franklin and Nipsey Russell and Sidney Poitier and all of these other great and outstanding artists,” King said. He told the students to urge their parents to attend. “And I hope you will come also, for it will be a great experience and, by coming, you will be supporting the work of the Civil Rights Movement.”

King did not use notes, Farnese said. He spoke for 20 minutes, an address that would eventually be known as his “What is Your Life’s Blueprint?” speech.

The Barratt students, seventh, eighth, and ninth graders, were poised to move into a time that would determine the course of the rest of their lives.

The great civil rights figure, who had by that time already won the Nobel Peace Prize, told the young people to have “a deep belief in your own dignity, your own worth, and your own somebodiness. Don’t allow anybody to make you feel that you are nobody.”

Take pride in your color, your natural hair, King told the students, most of whom were Black.

“You need not be lured into purchasing cosmetics advertised to make you lighter, neither do you need to process your hair to make it appear straight,” King said. “I have good hair and it is as good as anybody else’s in the world. And we’ve got to believe that.”

‘Learn, baby, learn’

King urged the crowd to set upon a path to excellence, whatever that looks like.

“I say to you, my young friends, that doors are opening to each of you — doors of opportunity are opening to each of you that were not open to your mothers and your fathers,” King said. “And the great challenge facing you is to be ready to enter these doors as they open.”

Kemp remembers being surprised that King came to South Philadelphia.

“Our neighborhood was pretty poor,” said Kemp, who grew up as one of nine children in a family that struggled. “There really wasn’t too much to look forward to in our neighborhood.”

King acknowledged the “intolerable conditions” faced by many of the children he addressed. But, he said, it was incumbent on them to stay in school, to build a good life.

“Set out to do a good job and do that job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn couldn’t do it any better,” King said. “If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures.”

The civil rights hero told students to commit to “the eternal principles of beauty, love, and justice. Don’t allow anybody to pull you so low as to make you hate them.”

King, who encouraged peaceful resistance, urged “a method that can be militant, but at the same time does not destroy life or property.”

“And so our slogan must not be ‘Burn, baby, burn,’” King said, referring to a chant that had become associated with the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles. “It must be ‘Build, baby, build. Organize, baby, organize.’ Yes, our slogan must be ‘Learn, baby, learn’ so that we can earn, baby, earn.

“And with a powerful commitment, I believe that we can transform dark yesterdays of injustice into bright tomorrows of justice and humanity.”

‘I’ll never forget it’

Some of the members of the Barratt class in the room that day soared: Kevin Washington, who was on the basketball team with Kemp, went on to become the first Black president of the national YMCA.

Kemp was bright, but his family’s economic struggles weighed on him, he said. He dreamed of college, but it wasn’t in reach. He ended up leaving South Philadelphia High without a diploma, eventually earning a GED.

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He raised children, built a life working — often in maintenance. He spent time as a school basketball coach.

After suffering medical and marital issues, Kemp fell on hard times. He spent four months without a home, sleeping in parks and at 30th Street Station.

“Dr. King’s speech really helped,” he said. “That used to come to mind when I was on the street. I’ll never forget it.”

Kemp rallied; he now lives in an apartment in South Philadelphia.

Jeffrey Miles is photographed at his home in Philadelphia on Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. Miles was 13 in October 1967 when he shook the hand of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and witnessed a speech that altered the course of his life.

The speech also altered the course of Miles’ life.

“I was a member of a gang in South Philly,” said Miles, now 72. “I never paid attention to adults and teachers. But that day I paid attention to Dr. King.”

King’s words — reach for more, do your best, no matter your struggles — resonated. He buckled down at school, graduated from high school, from college. He became an optician and even taught students at Salus University.

“When Dr. King said, ‘instead of burn, baby, burn, learn, baby learn,’ that gave me a window,” said Miles, who lives in West Oak Lane. “It gave me hope.”

January 18, 2026
Who is Shane Hennen, the high-stakes Philly gambler at the center of the latest sports-betting indictment?

For Shane Hennen, the house of cards keeps folding.

A federal indictment unsealed Thursday accuses the Philadelphia-based professional gambler of acting as a ringleader in a sweeping sports-betting conspiracy now involving the NCAA and the Chinese Basketball Association. Hennen was first arrested last January in connection with a gambling case involving a former Toronto Raptor, and was also charged separately in an October indictment in New York focused on the NBA.

The latest charges against Hennen, known as “Sugar Shane,” brought an international angle to the existing portrait of a high-stakes gambler who prosecutors allege was willing to bribe athletes to throw games, provide devices to fix backroom card games tied to the New York mafia, and use insider betting information to place fraudulent wagers.

In all, federal prosecutors have accused Hennen of conspiring to place fraudulent bets on ex-Raptors forward Jontay Porter and NBA guard Terry Rozier, bribing the top-scoring player in the CBA to throw games, and recruiting college basketball trainers to help rig dozens of NCAA games — much of it orchestrated from Hennen’s favorite Philly casino, Rivers. On top of it all, he is also alleged to have participated in the rigging of mob-linked poker games in New York City.

And while the list of implicated players and conspirators continues to grow by the dozens, Hennen has remained a central figure to the bet-fixing scandals that have rocked the sports world over the past year.

Rise of a “betfluencer”

On social media, Hennen has cast himself as rising from a hard-luck Pennsylvania town to a self-styled “betfluencer,” flying on private jets from Las Vegas to Monte Carlo and gambling up to $1 million a week on sports and card games.

But Hennen’s earlier record for criminality came into clearer view as result of the federal investigations. While growing up in the Pittsburgh area, he did time for drug and gambling related charges that now serve as a kind of prelude to his role in the bet-fixing scandals.

In 2006, the Washington, Pa., native received probation in Allegheny County for charges linked to a gambling scheme. According to court records, Hennen and an accomplice rented adjacent rooms in a Pittsburgh area hotel to hold underground dice games. While gambling in one room, a partner in the next room employed a magnetic device to flip loaded dice to preferred numbers.

Then, early one morning in 2009, a former Duquesne University basketball player was found bleeding from a stab wound in Pittsburgh’s South Side neighborhood, a popular nightlife area. The man survived and later told police that Hennen had stabbed him in the neck after the athlete confronted him about cheating in a card game. Hennen was also picked up on a DUI less than two weeks later, but was released.

Not long afterward, Hennen was charged with two more felonies after he was caught in a parking lot with 500 grams of cocaine down the street from the Meadows Casino, near Pittsburgh.

In subsequent court filings, Hennen revealed that he had been working with a local drug dealer for more than a year. Facing well over a decade of jail time between the drug and assault charges linked to the stabbing, Hennen agreed to testify against his dealer and participated in a federal drug sting involving a different narcotics supplier based in Detroit, court records show.

He served just less than two-and-a-half years in prison, plus four years of supervised release.

According to court transcripts published by Sports Illustrated in October, Hennen admitted five times under oath that he cheated other people out of money.

During a cross-examination, Lee Rothman, an attorney for his associate drug dealer he was testifying against, stated bluntly that Hennen made “a living out of cheating people out of things.”

“That’s correct,” Hennen said.

After his release in 2013, Hennen traveled to Pensacola, Fla., purportedly to work as a sales rep for a seafood wholesaler. Court records show he almost immediately went back to gambling, even violating his probation to travel out of state to participate in the 2014 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

When Hennen landed in Philadelphia in 2015, it was seemingly to start over. He leased an apartment near the Rivers Casino in Fishtown.

The small casino would become Hennen’s unlikely staging ground for a new, more lucrative gambling scheme that would come to span the globe.

From Philly to China

Local gamblers said Hennen worked the poker and baccarat tables at Rivers, using the action to build a reputation with the house and pave the way for six-figure sports bets, the kind only gamblers with money and a track record at the casino are allowed to make.

By 2022, Hennen had launched an online betting consultancy via an Instagram page called “Sugar Shane Wins.” On social media, Hennen posted his sportsbook picks along with glamorous photos jetting around to Vegas or Dubai, or sitting courtside at Sixers games.

Although he marketed bets on teams familiar to U.S. gamblers, his focus — and income — was overseas, according to federal prosecutors.

He posted courtside photos of himself at Sixers games with a Mississippi-based sports handicapper named Marves Fairley, who prosecutors say connected the gambler with Antonio Blakeney, a former Louisiana State University shooting guard who had done a brief stint on the Chicago Bulls.

Blakeney had subsequently bounced around different international teams, including Hapoel Tel Aviv, in Israel, and the Nanjing Monkey Kings and Jiangsu Dragons, both in China. According to a federal indictment, while playing for the Dragons, Hennen and Fairley bribed Blakeney to underperform in Chinese basketball games in order to fix high-stakes bets against the team and recruit others to do the same.

Suddenly, the slots parlor on the Delaware was seeing six-figure bets placed on multiple Chinese basketball games through its sportsbook, BetRivers, sometimes for upward of $200,000. Representatives for the casino declined to comment Thursday on the latest federal indictment.

The gambit proved reliably lucrative. In a 2023 text message obtained by federal authorities, Hennen reassured an accomplice who had placed big bets against Blakeney’s team.

“Nothing gu[a]rantee[d] in this world,” Hennen wrote, ”but death taxes and Chinese basketball.”

The model would also serve as a template for a similar racket the duo would orchestrate within the NCAA.

By 2024, the duo had recruited basketball trainers Jalen Smith and Roderick Winkler to help convince dozens of college basketball players to rig matches on their behalf.

Ultimately, 39 players on more than 17 Division 1 NCAA teams would participate, with bettors wagering millions on at least 29 rigged games.

Hennen took a behind-the-scenes role, authorities alleged, texting a network of straw bettors who placed big wagers on games featuring star players bribed by the trainers, and sometimes moving bribe money or splitting up winnings back in Philly.

His rising profile started to draw unwanted attention.

Shortly after Hennen relocated to Las Vegas in 2023, he was accused of rigging poker matches by Wesley “Wes Side” Fei, another professional gambler who claimed in social media posts that Hennen had scammed him out of millions.

The next year, gambling industry watchdog Integrity Compliance 360 began flagging bets placed on six Temple University basketball games. One, against Alabama-Birmingham in March 2024, saw the Borgata, in Atlantic City, cancel bets for the game due to suspicious betting activity. Before the end of 2024, the National Collegiate Athletic Association had launched an investigation into the games, as rumors swirled that federal authorities were questioning Temple player Hysier Miller as part of an alleged point-shaving scheme.

Then Porter, the Raptors center, was banned for life from the NBA, after it emerged that the league was investigating yet another bet-rigging scheme. A few months later, Porter pleaded guilty to gambling charges — the first hint at the true scope of a sprawling federal investigation that went on to consume the NCAA and NBA.

Beginning of the end

In January 2025, Hennen’s luck ran out.

Authorities stopped him in Las Vegas as he was boarding a one-way flight to Panama, en route to Colombia. He had $10,000 in his pocket and claimed he was headed to South America for dental treatment.

But investigators had already zeroed in on Hennen as the main orchestrator of the prop betting scheme involving Rozier, the former Miami Heat guard. In October, federal prosecutors in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York unsealed an indictment, accusing Hennen of working with Fairley to have Rozier throw games for a profit, sometimes using Philadelphia as a meeting point to dole out the proceeds to other bettors.

Court records show that since then, Hennen has entered plea negotiations with federal prosecutors and relocated to a residence in South Philadelphia. (His attorney did not respond to a request for comment.)

During the Thursday news conference unveiling the latest indictment, Wayne Jacobs, a special agent in charge of the FBI Philadelphia field office, said that Hennen and his conspirators’ actions had undermined faith in professional sports writ large.

“We expect athletes to embody the very best of hard work, skill, and discipline, not to sell out to those seeking to corrupt the games for their own personal benefit,” he said. “The money that’s used as a tool to influence outcomes does not just taint a single game, it tears up the trust and the results that we cherish.”

January 16, 2026
In South Philly mass shooting, friends unintentionally killed each other, but it’s still murder, prosecutors say

No one can say for certain what caused the first loud “pop” to echo down a South Philadelphia block — a single gunshot, a car backfiring, or something else entirely.

But within seconds, at least 15 people attending a party on the 1500 block of South Etting Street pulled out guns and started shooting, a chain reaction that left three people dead and 10 others wounded.

In the weeks that followed the July 7 mass shooting, police said they identified four people who fired weapons that night: Daquan Brown, 21, Terrell Frazier, 22, Brandon Fisher, 17, and Dieve Jardine, 45. Prosecutors charged each with three counts of murder, 10 counts of attempted murder, conspiracy, and related crimes.

Her youngest son was killed in a mass shooting. Now, her eldest is charged with committing one.

Municipal Court Judge Francis W. McCloskey Jr. on Thursday ruled that the cases against the four men could move forward to trial on charges of third-degree murder, aggravated assault, and inciting a riot. He dismissed all counts of attempted murder and causing a catastrophe.

Throughout the nearly five-hour hearing, prosecutors, using a compilation of video and social media evidence, laid out in greatest detail yet how the shooting unfolded.

Dozens of people had gathered on the street the night of July 7, the second block party in as many days. Gunfire erupted just before 1 a.m.

Assistant District Attorney Cydney Pope said the shooting was driven in part by paranoia.

Assistant District Attorney Cydney Pope leaving the courthouse during a November trial.

Frazier and other young men at the party had been going back and forth with people on social media, she said, challenging someone who threatened to shoot up the party to “go ahead” in an Instagram Live video.

Less than 10 minutes later, she said, surveillance video showed a single loud “pop” that appeared to scare partygoers, who started to run down the block.

Eight seconds later, she said, at least 15 people at the party pulled out their guns and shot more than 120 bullets toward the end of the block.

But there’s no evidence anyone ever shot into the party, she said. The sound they believed was gunfire, she said, was likely a car backfiring.

“This is a tragedy because all of these defendants shot and killed their friends,” she said.

From left to right: Zahir Wylie, Jason Reese, and Azir Harris were killed in a mass shooting on the 1500 block of Etting Street on July 7.

Three men were killed. Zahir Wylie, 23, was struck in the chest, and Jason Reese, 19, was shot in the head. Azir Harris, 27, who used a wheelchair after being paralyzed in an earlier shooting, was struck in the back as he sought cover between two cars.

Homicide Detective Joseph Cremen said he identified the four gunmen by combing surveillance video, phone, and social media records, and interviewing witnesses.

Fisher, he said, was seen on the porch of one of the homes using a gun with a “switch” attachment that caused him to spray dozens of bullets down the street, appearing at times as if he couldn’t control his weapon. In the teen’s phone, he said, were pictures of him with multiple guns, as well as the clothes he was wearing the night of the shooting and messages indicating he was selling firearms.

Police said the person directly in front of this video is Brandon Fisher, 17, using a gun with a switch on it to fire dozens of shots down Etting Street on July 7.

And Frazier, he said, talked about the shooting in text messages. About 12 hours after the shooting, he said, someone asked Frazier where he was when Wylie was struck.

“I was banging back,” Frazier wrote. He said the shooting was “bad,” and that Wylie “died from us.”

“He died from a stray,” he said, according to the texts.

Cremen said Brown admitted that he fired two shots with his legally owned gun, “then when he realized he wasn’t shooting at anything, he stopped and took cover.”

And Jardine, also known as Dieve Drumgoole, also told investigators he fired two or three shots after he saw someone come out of an alley on the block with a green laser attachment on a gun, the detective said.

Cremen didn’t recover video that showed anyone using a gun with a green laser beam.

Defense attorneys for the four men all argued that their clients were acting in self-defense, and only fired their guns because they believed someone was shooting at them. Police still do not know — and may never know — whose bullets struck each victim.

“There is no evidence that he struck anyone, there’s no evidence that he intended to strike anyone,” said Gina Amoriello, who represents Brown. “In all my years, I’ve never seen a case overcharged like this. This is extreme.”

Philadelphia Police Crimes Scene officer taking pictures at scene. Scene of an overnight shooting 1500 block S. Etting Street, Philadelphia, that sent several to hospital, fatalities, early Monday, July 7, 2025.

John Francis McCaul, Jardine’s lawyer, said the father was “protecting his family” on the porch. Jardine’s son and nephew were also injured in the shooting.

No one, he said, intended to kill anyone by firing their guns.

The judge disagreed.

“The intent goes where the bullet goes,” said McCloskey. “The intent is established by producing the gun, pointing the gun, and pulling the trigger.”

He said it would be up to a jury or judge later on to determine whether or not the men were acting in self defense. At this preliminary stage, he said, prosecutors provided enough evidence to uphold a third-degree murder charge.

Prosecutors plan to address charges against a fifth person, Jihad Gray, who had been charged with the shooting at a hearing next week.

A sixth person, Christopher Battle, 24, remains at-large.

After the hearing, the families of the victims struggled to make sense of what they had just watched — friends killing friends.

“It’s really hard to digest,” said Troy Harris, whose son, Azir, was killed. “It was shocking. It was life changing to us. … This domino effect can hurt generations and generations.”

“I still don’t even get it,” said Markeisha Manigault, the mother to Zahir Wylie. “I don’t understand why … my son lost his life. It was just unnecessary.”

Family and friends gather for a balloon release in memory of Zahir Wylie at the Papa Playground on July 8, 2025.

January 15, 2026
Dilys E. Blum, senior curator emeritus at the Philadelphia Art Museum, has died at 78

Dilys E. Blum, 78, of Philadelphia, senior curator emeritus of costume and textiles at the Philadelphia Art Museum, author, lecturer, mentor, and world traveler, died Saturday, Dec. 27, of complications from cancer at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

For 38 years, from 1987 to her retirement in 2025, Ms. Blum served as the museum’s curator of costume and textiles. In that role, she organized the museum’s vast treasure trove of textile artifacts, traveled the world to research noted fashion designers and eclectic collections, and created more than 40 memorable exhibitions about Renaissance velvets, contemporary fashion, Asian textiles, carpets, African American quilts, and dozens of other curios.

Among her most popular presentations were 1997’s “Best Dressed: 250 Years of Style,” 2011’s “Roberto Capucci: Art into Fashion,” and 2025’s “Boom: Art and Design in the 1940s.” She organized two displays simultaneously in 2007, and The Inquirer said: “One exhibit is elegant, one’s eccentric, both are impressive.”

She was cited as the world’s foremost authority on avant-garde Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, and her 2003 exhibition “Shocking! The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli” drew 83,000 visitors. Francesco Pastore, the heritage and cultural projects manager at the House of Schiaparelli in Paris, said: “Her remarkable research, her generosity in sharing knowledge, and her contribution to fashion studies have deeply enriched our field.”

Ms. Blum (right) and colleague Monica Brown tend to a museum exhibit in 2011.

In a recent tribute, former museum colleagues marveled at her “technical expertise and cultural insight,” and credited her for reinvigorating the once-neglected textiles collection. Daniel Weiss, director and chief executive officer of the museum, said: “She transformed this museum’s costume and textiles department into a program respected around the world.”

She told The Inquirer in 1990: “We wanted to remind them that we were here.”

Before Philadelphia, Ms. Blum was a textile conservator at the Chicago Conservation Center and the Brooklyn Museum, and senior assistant keeper of the costume and textile department at the Museum of London. She earned a bachelor’s degree in art history at Connecticut College and studied afterward at the University of Manchester in England and the Courtauld Institute of Art at the University of London.

“She was fearless in her pursuit of perfection in her work,” said her sister Galen. Her sister Sydney said: “She was dedicated to her craft and scholarship.”

Ms. Blum (left) was close to her sisters Sydney (center) and Galen.

An avid reader and writer, Ms. Blum wrote and cowrote several books about textiles and designers, and 2021’s Patrick Kelly: Runway of Love, coauthored with former colleague Laura L. Camerlengo, earned a 2023 honorable mention publication award from the Costume Society of America. She also wrote essays for exhibition catalogs, served on editorial boards for journals, lectured around the world, and was active with the International Council of Museums, the Association of Art Museum Curators, and other groups.

In 2025, to celebrate Ms. Blum’s retirement, Camerlengo praised her “deep knowledge, creative vision, and contagious passion for the field.” She said: “Dilys is one of the most influential figures in the world of fashion and textile arts.”

Ms. Blum’s work and fashion viewpoints were featured often in The Inquirer. In 1997, she said: “People don’t dress up anymore.” In 1999, she said: “I think we’ve lost the joy in dressing. There’s this trend away from clutter in dress and decorating. It’s pared down to the point of visual boredom.”

In 2001, she said it was easy to differentiate between New Yorkers and Philadelphians. “New Yorkers,” she said, “will invariably be wearing the accessory of the moment, a pashmina shawl, a Kate Spade bag, a Prada loafer.”

Ms. Blum left “an enduring legacy woven through the art museum and the generations of scholars and visitors who now see costumes and textiles as central to the story of art,” former museum colleagues said.

Dilys Ellen Blum was born July 11, 1947, in Ames, Iowa. She and her parents moved to Hamilton, N.Y., when she was 1, and the family traveled with her father, an economics professor at Colgate University, on teaching sabbaticals abroad. When she was 12, Ms. Blum spent a year with her parents and sisters living in Norway and touring Europe in a Volkswagen Beetle.

Her mother was an artist and seamstress, and she and Ms. Blum spent many nights poring over clothes patterns on their dining room table. She enjoyed reading murder mysteries and traveling the world in search of new museum-worthy artifacts.

Dilys Blum makes room for fashion at the Art Museum

She lived in South Philadelphia, was diagnosed with cancer three years ago, and talked often with her sisters on the telephone. “I admired her seriousness and humility,” Sydney said. Galen said: “From my perspective, I was in awe of her.”

In addition to her sisters, Ms. Blum is survived by a niece, Juniper, and other relatives.

A memorial service is to be held later.

Former museum colleagues said Ms. Blum’s writing “consistently amplified the makers and wearers of extraordinary objects, and their intertwined relationships.”

From Paris to Wanamaker’s to the Philadelphia Museum of Art

January 15, 2026
OpenTable begins adding a 2% service fee to some transactions, including no-show fees

OpenTable has begun adding a 2% service charge on transactions made through the reservations site, including no-show penalties, deposits, and prepaid dining experiences such as special events.

An OpenTable spokesperson said the restaurants can absorb the 2% charge or pass it along to customers. The fee is part of what OpenTable called an overhaul that began rolling out to most U.S. restaurants in the second half of 2025, with the remainder scheduled for early 2026.

As before, patrons are not being charged directly for ordinary reservations; the restaurants continue to pay OpenTable to use the platform as part of their service agreement.

Davide Lubrano of Pizzata Pizzeria & Birreria with a Roman pizza, topped with mixed organic wild mushrooms, organic leeks, low-moisture mozzarella, prosciutto cotto Italian ham, stracciatella, pickled chiodini mushrooms in oil, chives, aged Parmigiano Reggiano, and truffle caviar pearls.

“Online payments are important for restaurants and, together with our restaurant partners, we’ve learned that they help reduce no-shows, improve cash flow, and increase revenue,” the OpenTable representative said. “By applying a standard service fee structure across all transaction types, we can continue to support new tools that help restaurants protect and unlock revenue.”

In the last 18 months, OpenTable has been ramping up its presence, aggressively luring hip restaurants away from competing services such as Resy and Tock.

Fighting back against reservation scalping

At Pizzata Pizzeria & Birreria on East Passyunk Avenue in South Philadelphia, co-owner Davide Lubrano said the restaurant recently turned to OpenTable in an effort to control persistent no-shows.

With just 48 dining-room seats split between two floors — plus a 12-seat bar that is first come, first served — missed reservations ripple through Pizzata’s service.

“What was happening is that we were turning away walk-ins, and then the reservation wouldn’t show up,” Lubrano said. “We ended up losing tables, basically.”

Pizzata just began requiring a credit card to hold OpenTable reservations, which call for a $15-per-person no-show fee.

But Pizzata is generous about it. Lubrano said customers get a 20-minute grace period, along with three reminder texts and a courtesy call. “If you don’t respond to the texts and don’t answer the call, that counts as a no-show, and that’s when the charge applies,” he said. “But if you answer and say you need to cancel, there’s no charge.”

As for the new 2% fee that would be tacked on to the $15 no-show charge, Lubrano emphasized that OpenTable and not the restaurant is assessing it.

He added that diners who prefer to avoid entering a credit card online can still call the restaurant directly. “You can always call us and avoid a credit card fee, and we put a reservation in for you,” he said.

January 14, 2026
Ena Widjojo, owner and longtime celebrated chef at Hardena in South Philadelphia, has died at 73

Ena Widjojo, 73, of Philadelphia, owner and longtime celebrated chef at the Hardena restaurant in South Philadelphia, mentor, and mother, died Wednesday, Dec. 24, of cancer at her home.

Born and reared in Java, Indonesia, Mrs. Widjojo came to the United States in 1969 when she was 17. She opened a cantina at the Indonesian Consulate in New York in 1977, worked as a caterer in the 1990s after the cantina closed in 1989, and moved to Philadelphia in 2000 to open Hardena with her husband, Harry.

Over the next decade and a half, until she retired in 2017, Mrs. Widjojo grew Hardena, described by the Daily News in 2007 as “a postage-stamp-size luncheonette at Hicks and Moore Streets in a gritty section of South Philly,” into a culinary and cultural connection for thousands of local Indonesians and other diners who enjoyed her homemade Southeast Asia cuisine.

The corner restaurant’s name is a blend of their names, Harry and Ena, and features Indonesian specialties such as golden tofu, goat curry, saté chicken, beef rendang, and tempeh. “It’s the best Indonesian food in Philadelphia, a great mix of Indian and Chinese flavors,” elementary schoolteacher Aaron MacLennan told the Daily News in 2007.

This photo of Mrs. Widjojo appeared in the Daily News in 2007

In 2012, Philadelphia Magazine named Hardena one of its Best of Philly Indonesian restaurants, calling it a “no-frills, high-flavor buffet.” In February 2018, Mrs. Widjojo and two of her three daughters were named semifinalists for the James Beard Foundation’s best chef award for the Mid-Atlantic states. In October 2018, Inquirer food critic Craig LaBan praised the restaurant’s “aromatic steam table of homestyle cooking that’s been a well-priced anchor of Indonesian comfort for 18 years.”

Friendly and ever present at the lunch and dinner rushes, Mrs. Widjojo was known as Mama to many of her customers and friends. She learned how to bake and cook from her mother, a culinary teacher in Java, and later incorporated many of her mother’s recipes into her own memorable melting pot of Indian, Chinese, Arab, Portuguese, Spanish, English, and Dutch dishes at Hardena.

“She served me greens once, and I felt like I was at home,” a friend said on Instagram.

She and her husband traveled weekly between Philadelphia and Queens while their daughters — Diana, Maylia, and Stephanie — finished school in New York. Maylia and Diana assumed control of Hardena when Mrs. Widjojo retired, and Diana opened the restaurant Rice & Sambal on East Passyunk Avenue in 2024.

Earlier, at the consulate in New York, Mrs. Widjojo made meals for former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Indonesian President Suharto and his large entourage. “I cooked for all the diplomats.” she told The Inquirer in 2018.

Mrs. Widjojo (second from right) smiles with her husband and three daughters.

She grew chili peppers and lime trees in her South Philly backyard, was happy to share kitchen tips and cultural traditions with visitors and cooking classes, and helped her daughters cater the 2019 James Beard Foundation’s annual Media Awards in New York.

She worked six days a week for years and told edible Philly in 2017 that her retirement was good for her daughters. “If I’m cooking all the time,” she said, “they’re not learning.”

Ena Djuneidi Juniarsah was born April 24, 1952. She baked cakes in a charcoal oven for her mother in Java and sold cookies and pastries after school when she was young. “

Her mother was strict about cooking, Mrs. Widjojo said in 2018, and discarded any and all imperfect creations. “Like me, with my kids’ cooking,” she said, “if you’re not good, that’s no good.”

She married fellow restaurateur Harry Widjojo in New York and spent time as a singer, beautician, florist, and nanny before cooking full time. Away from the restaurant, she enjoyed drawing, painting, crocheting, and family strolls in the park.

Mrs. Widjojo and her husband, Harry, were married in New York.

She could be goofy, her daughters said. She sang “You Are My Sunshine” when they were young and served as their lifelong mentor and teacher.

Friends called her “sweet,” “amazing,” “a beautiful soul,” and “warm and welcoming” on Instagram. She was diagnosed with cancer in 2015.

“Her life, generosity, and talent enriched the hearts of all who met her,” her family said in a tribute. “She taught us that feeding people is one of the purest ways to show love, have pride in our culture, and support our family.”

How Ena Widjojo’s tiny South Philly Indonesian restaurant got national recognition

Maylia said: “She was always giving.”

Stephanie said: “She was always there for me.”

Mrs. Widjojo (center) stands in Hardena with her daughters Maylia (left) and Diana in 2020.

Diana said: “She saw the world with open arms and an open heart. She was a wonder woman.”

In addition to her husband and daughters, Mrs. Widjojo is survived by two grandchildren, a sister, two brothers, and other relatives. A sister and two brothers died earlier.

Survivors give advice about mourning their loved ones, as told to The Inquirer’s obit writer

A celebration of her life was held Dec. 27.

Donations in her name may be made to Masjid Al Falah Mosque, 1603 S. 17th St. Philadelphia, Pa. 19145.

Mrs. Widjojo came to the United States from Java when she was 17.

January 13, 2026
This $8M federal college grant will train Hanwha shipyard workers

A consortium set up in 1996 to train future shipyard workers at the former Philadelphia Navy Yard says a new U.S. Department of Labor grant will prepare workers for Korean-owned Hanwha Philly Shipyard. The group hopes to quadruple apprenticeship graduates from around 120 workers a year to around 500.

“In line with President [Donald] Trumpʼs executive orders, these projects will help train our next generation of shipbuilders,” U.S. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said in a statement.

Led by Delaware County Community College, the effort includes other area colleges, partnered with Hanwha and the nonprofit Collegiate Consortium for Workforce & Economic Development.

The Delco-led effort will set up “a new model of education and training for U.S. shipbuilding that will include sending U.S. instructors and workers overseas to learn advanced shipbuilding techniques” to be used at yards including Hanwha’s in South Philadelphia, the college said in a statement.

The money will help pay for training simulation models, online courses, and other programs for “an internationally recognized curriculum for shipbuilding skilled trades” to help trade unions, schools, and shipyards prepare new apprentices and more-experienced journeymen union workers, veterans, welders, steelworkers, electricians, steamfitters, and carpenters.

The partners “will accelerate the transfer of proven global shipbuilding practices to the U.S.,” Hanwha Philadelphia Shipyard chief executive David Kim said in a statement.

The consortium is chaired by Marta Yera Cronin, who is also the Delco community college president.

The shipyard, bought by South Korea’s family-owned Hanwha industrial group for $100 million in late 2024, employs around 1,700 but wants to double that. It plans to bring in new automated equipment to build ships and drones for the Navy, other government agencies, and private shippers.

Hanwha sends workers from its giant shipyards on Geojedo island, South Korea, to help complete work on civilian ships in Philadelphia.

The company has pledged to invest $5 billion in the yard, backed by U.S. government grants and loans. It says it wants to boost output from the current one ship every eight months to 10 to 20 a year.

Trump has said he’d like to see Hanwha technology used by U.S. workers to build nuclear submarines and battleships in Philadelphia.

That would require extensive new dry docks, cranes, power plants and other large capital investments, and a lot more ground and dock space than the 118-acre Hanwha-owned yard or the neighboring former Navy site where family-owned Rhoads Industries repairs and fabricates parts for General Dynamics, a major Navy submarine builder.

A separate $5.8 million Labor Department grant is going to the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, one of several civilian officer training schools slated to receive Korean-designed training vessels that the Philadelphia yard has been building in recent years. That money will develop additional shipbuilder training with foreign partners.

Under current contracts with the Philadelphia metalworkers’ union group that represents yard workers — itself a joint effort of the boilermakers, operating engineers, carpenters, and other unions — newly qualified workers can earn around $30 an hour. Experienced workers can qualify for as much as $100,000 a year, including overtime.

According to the consortium, community colleges have added trades education following a drop in U.S. public school shop classes and a shortage of U.S. workers interested in industrial work, including shipbuilding, which involves high-heat tools, dangerous materials, and outdoor work in all weather.

The grant will speed expansion of the consortium, which has received grants from Citizens Bank and support from port-related agencies in past years.

The college says it has trained more than 600 apprentices in all fields over the past 20 years. It stepped up its focus on shipbuilding beginning in 2017.

January 12, 2026