For more than a year, Giuseppe Tosco tried to get Dave Portnoy’s attention with a giant roadside sign outside his Montgomery County pizzeria that read, “We Want Dave Portnoy.”
Two months ago, Tosco finally took it down to replace it with a sign advertising the new patio at Italian Delite in Trappe.
On Tuesday, Portnoy walked in anyway. “The first thing he asked was, ‘Where’s the sign?’” Tosco said. “I told him we’d taken it down. He said, ‘Oh my God, it’s been that long?’”
The surprise visit was one of at least five stops Portnoy made across Philadelphia and its suburbs Tuesday as the Barstool Sports founder filmed new installments of his influential “One Bite Pizza Reviews,” whose scores can transform the fortunes of a neighborhood pizzeria.
In each review, Portnoy samples a plain cheese slice — often taking much more than one bite — and assigns it a score on a 10-point scale. His ratings have become one of the pizza world’s most sought-after endorsements, often drawing long lines and national attention for top-scoring shops.
Three of Tuesday’s scores became known almost immediately, as onlookers shared them. Johnny’s received an 8.3, Liguria an 8.2, and Marina’s a 7.9. The owners of Pizza Di Vita and Italian Delite said they never heard their scores before Portnoy moved on; they are waiting for the videos to be released.
Lisa and John Paxia of Lillo’s Tomato Pies in Hainesport with Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy (left) in November 2022.Courtesy of Lillo Paxia
If Tosco spent more than a year trying to lure Portnoy to the Collegeville suburbs, John Bisceglie initially refused to believe the reviewer was coming to Johnny’s Pizzeria (which has a spot on The Inquirer’s 76 list).
“Somebody texted me, ‘Dave’s in Philly. Heads up,’” Bisceglie said. “I just laughed it off. I’ve heard that before.”
Still, he was working at his shop in Wayne when he sent a photo of Portnoy to his employees at Johnny’s Bryn Mawr, just in case.
Then, manager Jaison Velásquez called.
“He said, ‘I just got an order for Barstool,’” Bisceglie recalled. “I said, ‘Oh my God. It’s happening.’”
Bisceglie stayed on the phone coaching his staff. “I told them, ‘Wait about 10 minutes so the pizza comes right out of the oven. Make it crispy. Well done.’”
He credited Velásquez and manager Dan Bisceglie, his cousin, with staying calm. “He kept telling me, ‘I got this. Relax. I got this,’” Bisceglie said of Velásquez.
When Portnoy awarded the pie an 8.3 on camera, Bisceglie knew it was significant.
“Those pizza guys don’t hand out scores like that very often,” he said. “An 8.3 is a big deal.”
For Tosco, at Italian Delite in Trappe, the visit was memorable before the review even began.
Tosco said he had tagged Portnoy incessantly on social media. “I told him, ‘If you came, you came. If you didn’t, you didn’t. I just didn’t want to keep bothering you,’” Tosco said.
The day became even stranger when Portnoy reviewed the wrong pizza.
Tosco had been away at a catering meeting when his cousin called to say Portnoy had arrived after placing an order under the name “Austin.” By coincidence, the restaurant’s social media team was filming, and Tosco’s cousin had made workers prepare a practice pizza for the camera. That pie came out of the oven before Portnoy’s order.
“My cousin said, ‘That’s not your pie,’” Tosco recalled. “Dave said, ‘I don’t care. I want that one.’”
As Tosco pulled into the parking lot, Portnoy was already recording the review.
Afterward, Tosco asked Portnoy to hang for five minutes. “I told him, ‘I just want to make you a Philly cheesesteak,’” Tosco said. “He said, ‘You seem like a good dude. I’ll come back in for you.’”
Tosco still doesn’t know what score Portnoy awarded his pizza. “I ended up getting a cheesesteak review, too, which was really cool,” Tosco said.
High Street Hospitality founder and James Beard Award winner Ellen Yin is just about ready to hit Rittenhouse with Bar Cicci, an all-day drop-in for espresso and pastries by morning, sandwiches by day, and spritzes, cicchetti, and small plates by night. Join Beatrice Forman on Sansom Street for your first look.
Shore season isn’t done yet, and neither are farmers markets, which have seen an uptick in business locally in the midst of a cyclospora outbreak. Hira Qureshi maps out where you can buy local produce, baked goods, and more at markets down the Shore.
Besides Bar Cicci, a half-dozen new restaurants are on tap this month, including Recipe Philly in Center City, Cecilia in Bridgeport, and Mixteca in East Kensington, where the red, white, and green of la bandera figures into the signature cocktail.
Lancaster Avenue in Ardmore, one of the Main Line’s busiest commercial strips, is now home to two new dessert shops. Denali Sagner explains that one specializes in tea, cakes, and buns, while the other celebrates the mango.
Canned-cocktail brand Top Dog is setting up listening rooms in Kennett Square and Fishtown, embracing the Japanese jazz kissa model — a music cafe or bar that’s focused on listening to vinyl records. Brooke Schultz chatted up Top Dog’s Ken Smukler, who aims to deliver an “analog feel in a digital world.” The Fishtown location is tiny. It used to be an ATM.
The handmade tarts from Market Day Canelé layer summer tomatoes over a corn custard with cremini and button mushrooms, herb-roasted cotto ham, eggs, and Gruyère in a flaky crust. Kiki Aranita says you have to act fast to snap one up.
Scoops
Two chefshave made big professional strides from their roots in Roxborough, and now they’re coming home to Manayunk to take over the Winnie’s space with a “punk French” eatery.
Aldar Bistro in Bala Cynwyd is giving way after 34 years to a white-tablecloth Southern Italian restaurant called Bruzi.
Does a spateof restaurant-closing announcements — such as Hiroki, Federal Donuts & Chicken,and the Lodge by Two Robbers — portend industry doom? No, and I’ll explain why not.
Restaurant report
Gabriella’s Vietnam in South Philadelphia is counting down to closing in mid-December as the new owner of her building is planning a restaurant of their own. Chef-owner Thanh Nguyen told Kiki Aranita that she is looking for a new spot.
Side Eye, the Queen Village bistro, gets a bit of side eye from critic Craig LaBan, who likes the vibe and pricing but thinks the execution could be sharper.
New drive-thru coffee option: The syndicated 7 Brew has opened at 4000 Woodhaven Rd. in Northeast Philadelphia’s Knights Road Shopping Center.
More bagels are coming round: Central Florida-based Jeff’s Bagel Run — schmeared with private-equity investment — has cinched a franchisee for 10 stores from the Harrisburg area east through Reading and the Lehigh Valley to suburban Philadelphia. No leases have been signed, the company announced in a press release.
Briefly noted
Cantina la Martina’s fourth annual Cemita Festival returns from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday at the Garden Center across from Mural City Cellars (1825 Frankford Ave). Six restaurants will each serve interpretations of Puebla’s iconic cemita sandwich for $16: Cantina la Martina, Gilda, Bolo, Vientiane Bistro, Cinteotl Tamalli, and Los Cuatro Soles Restaurant. Also: beverages from Mural City Cellars, DJ Cali Rumba, dance performances by Danza Tonantzin Cultura, face painting, and artisan vendors. It’s pay-as-you-go. Some cemita vendors are cash only.
Post Haste in East Kensington will become Philadelphia’s only participant in the inaugural Global Pay What You Can Day on Aug. 26, joining restaurants from Mexico City to Mumbai in a one-day effort to make dining more accessible. Guests can order whatever they’d like and pay what they can (excluding alcohol), building on chef Ari Miller’s weekly pay-what-you-can program launched earlier this year. (Miller is married to Inquirer staff writer Kiki Aranita.)
The Fishtown Pickle Project is taking its annual pickle-themed dinner outside of Fishtown for the first time. The Aug. 27 edition will have founders Niki Toscani and Mike Sicinski in Rittenhouse to collaborate with Uchi on a nine-course, pickle-centric tasting menu (e.g. oysters with giardiniera, yellowtail with pickled peach, salmon with pickled enoki, and a dessert featuring pickle jam). Seatings: 6 and 8:30 p.m. Tickets: $125 per person, plus tax and gratuity.
Chef Chaz Brown, in partnership with Forman Arts Initiative, will present the third annual Oxtail Collective from 1-5 p.m. Aug. 30 at the Substation in Kensington. Titled “The Hercules Posey Celebration” — after George Washington’s enslaved chef — the event will bring together Black chefs, historians, artists, and entrepreneurs to explore the intersections of food, culture, business, and history while serving as an early public introduction to Forman’s future 100,000-square-foot arts campus. Participating chefs include Chad Williams of Friday Saturday Sunday, Omar Tate and Cybille St. Aude-Tate of Honeysuckle, and Shola Olunloyo of Studiokitchen. PBS NewsHour’s Geoff Bennett will moderate panels, and the program also includes tastings from 15 chefs, cooking demos, and a marketplace featuring Black-owned businesses. Tickets ($92.55, including fees) are on sale.
Delicious City Philly Podcast’ssecond annual Hoagie Throwdown has a date: Sept. 27, from noon-4 p.m., at Other Half Brewing in Fishtown, drawing 20 chefs, restaurants, delis, and sandwich makers to compete. There will be unlimited hoagie samples, beer/soft drinks, and pro wrestlers grappling. (Last year’s outing was a scene: The Inquirer’s Craig LaBan, in a Zorro mask and big hat, went through hoagie-making boot camp.) The podcast has made 500 tickets available and early pricing starts at $55.
❓Pop quiz
Which Pennsylvania farm crop is in the crosshairs of the U.S. Department of Commerce?
What is going on at 117 Chestnut St.? The restaurant 117 is closed already and it just opened. — Chris D.
Old City restaurant 117, which opened only last November, posted a note on Instragram last week that it had closed “due to circumstances beyond our control.” According to Philadelphia court records, the restaurant was evicted over back rent.
The space’s previous occupant, the Avery, also had a very short run last year. Previous occupants had better luck: 2nd Story Brewing Co. closed in 2024 after a decade and was the last to use the brewing equipment installed by Triumph Brewing Co. for its own run from 2007 to 2014.
Adding intrigue now is the liquor license application that was filed at 117 Chestnut St. last week in the name “Finish Your Champagne LLC.” Finish Your Champagne is the name of the long-in-the-works Columbus Boulevard cocktail bar project from Kevin Dolce, owner of Center City’s Taste Cheesesteak Bar and Savù. Dolce declined comment.
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From Ellen Yin’s Italian aperitivo bar to a restaurant built around a community recipe contest, August’s opening calendar reflects the breadth of Philadelphia’s dining scene. Here’s what’s expected to debut this month — and what’s still to come.
Note that in most cases, opening dates will not be locked in until shortly before the debuts.
Christina McKeough (left) and Ellen Yin outside Bar Cicci.Tyger Williams / Staff Photographer
Bar Cicci (1620 Sansom St., Rittenhouse): Ellen Yin’s all-day aperitivo bar, located next to Uchi, is targeting a mid-August opening. In sum: 30 seats, espresso and pastries in the morning, sandwiches by day, and spritzes, cicchetti, and small plates by night, all in a Milan-inspired space complete with a vintage Lambretta scooter out front.
Cecilia (266 E. Fourth St., Bridgeport): The crew from Blue Bell Inn in Blue Bell and Horsham’s Copper Crow has revamped Taphouse 23 into a modern American bar-restaurant with a comfort-food menu and massive patio sporting a wood-burning oven. It’s targeting a late-month opening.
La Bandera is the signature cocktail at Mixteca.Courtesy of Apres Cru
Mixteca (2113 E. York St., East Kensington): Billed as a neighborhood agave bar and restaurant, this New York City import from hospitality veterans Jeff Bell and Victor Lopez is headed to the former Martha space, with an opening later this month. The roughly 100-seat venue will spotlight tequila, mezcal, Bacanora, and raicilla with 10 margarita variations, agave twists on classic cocktails, and zero-proof drinks alongside contemporary Mexican fare featuring handmade tortillas, ceviche, tacos, and family-style pork al pastor.
Recipe Philly’s recipe judges are (from left) Clara Park, Josh Moore, and Jennifer Carroll.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Recipe Philly (1401 Arch St., Center City): Local home cooks take the spotlight at this restaurant at Broad and Arch Streets built around a public recipe competition, with winning family dishes earning a permanent spot on the menu alongside the cooks’ stories. Opening Aug. 13, the concept blends restaurant, community cookbook, and reality-show competition into one distinct experience.
Toll Man Joe’s (1141 Pine St., Washington Square West): Returning to Philadelphia nearly five years after its pandemic closure, this sports bar will take the former location of the long-running Mixto. Founder Lori Penrose aims to open later in the month to catch football season.
Vons Chicken is set up with a counter and table seating.Michael Klein / Staff
Vons Chicken (1714 Washington Ave., South Philadelphia): This South Korean-rooted chain, big on the West Coast, opened last weekend in a Point Breeze strip mall next to AutoZone with a roomy dining area offering counter service. Menu includes crispy Korean fried chicken as well as oven-roasted chicken slicked with sauces, plus sides such as kimchi fried rice and tteokbokki. Local franchisee Thao Le, who first tasted Vons in California while visiting family, has assorted restaurant experience, including serving at Pietro’s Italian in Center City. Ever crave a beer with fried chicken? Vons secured a liquor license and stocks mostly local bottles in a fridge.
Looking ahead
Restaurants targeting September debuts include the Fishtown and Rittenhouse locations of Washington, D.C.-rooted bagel chain Call Your Mother; the all-day bar-restaurant Eggcetera Haus, filling the former Redcrest at Sixth and Bainbridge Streets on the Queen Village/Bella Vista line; and the New Orleans-inspired Philly Po Boy at Front and Berks Streets in Kensington. The Fishtown opening of Adda, the edgy Indian restaurant from New York’s Unapologetic Foods, is targeting October.
Federal and state officials including Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Pennsylvania Attorney General David Sunday were in Philadelphia on Tuesday to highlight efforts to combat the persistent problem of Medicaid billing fraud in home care.
During a news conference in Center City, officials outlined Pennsylvania cases involving a personal-care assistant who billed Medicaid 1,000 times for more than 24 hours of work in a single day, another who billed for helping his father in South Philadelphia while being arrested in Chester, and an agency that billed Medicaid $225,000 for services provided by an aide who was dead.
Federal and state prosecutors used the occasion to announce charges against 18 people and one agency in mostly unrelated cases for defrauding Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program of $4 million by billing for home-care services they did not provide. The alleged fraud occurred roughly over the last five years.
The alleged fraud in these cases filed over the last two weeks is tiny compared with the size of the program. Pennsylvania spent $8.1 billion on home-care services last year, up from $2.3 billion in 2020, when the program expanded and thousands more people started getting paid to provide home care.
“Used properly by honest citizens, the program allows those with physical ailments to be cared for by those they trust the most,” said Colin McDonald, of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division. “But infiltrated by greedy and deceitful opportunists, this program becomes a money tree, a gravy train for criminal fraudsters.”
Colin McDonald, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Justice National Fraud Enforcement Division, speaks as federal and state law enforcement officials announce healthcare fraud charges, Tuesday, August 4, 2026 in Philadelphia.Joe Lamberti / For The Inquirer
The U.S. Department of Justice shared details on six new cases. The Pennsylvania attorney general recently filed five new cases.
The biggest case involved $1.5 million in billings from a personal-care assistant registered with 13 agencies who more than 1,000 times charged Medicaid for more than 24 hours in a single day, Sunday said. On one occasion, the aide billed for 126 hours in a single day, Sunday said.
Federal prosecutors charged Benevolent Home Health Care with billing 600 times in 13 months for a personal-care aide who was dead. That case originated during the arrest of the husband of one of its owners on drug-trafficking charges, said David Metcalf, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
As the man was being arrested, he told agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency that he had to clock out of his shift as a home-care aide, even though he was not providing services. When asked about it, according to Metcalf, he said: “Everybody is doing this. If that’s a problem, you’d have to arrest the whole city,”
Attorneys for Khaleelah Williams and Saleemah Davis, Benevolent’s owners, said they had no comment.
In other cases, defendants billed for providing services while they were in prison, working at one of Philadelphia’s sports stadiums, or vacationing in Saudi Arabia, Jamaica, or Colombia
This story has been updated to correct the name of the agency Mehmet Oz heads.
Gabriella’s Vietnam, the acclaimed South Philadelphia restaurant known for showcasing regional Vietnamese cooking, will close in mid-December after nearly six years as chef-owner Thanh Nguyen searches for a new home.
Nguyen began looking for another location last fall after the building at 1837 E. Passyunk Ave., near Mifflin Street, was sold. She has continued operating under a month-to-month lease while planning the restaurant’s next chapter.
The building’s new owners, Bharat Bist and Gigi Giri — who operate Mount Masala in Voorhees and Nepali Momo Kitchen in Spring Garden — plan to open a yet-to-be-named Himalayan restaurant there early next year. Giri said the menu will combine Mount Masala’s bold stews with Nepali Momo Kitchen’s extensive lineup of momos, the steamed, filled dumplings.
“I have a dream to do something different,” said Giri, whose husband, Bist, is the chef.
The couple also plan to open a shop serving coffee and momos on Third Street near South Street within the next two months.
Nguyen said she and Giri reached an agreement that allowed Gabriella’s to remain open through mid-December.
“Gigi was very sweet and nice,” Nguyen said. “She didn’t kick me out right away, and she gave me a year.”
Gabriella’s backstory and future plans
Gabriella’s, which opened in February 2021 in the former home of Ange Branca’s Saté Kampar, has earned widespread acclaim. It appeared on The Inquirer‘s 76 list and was named to the New York Times’ 2022 list of Best New Restaurants.
The restaurant helped broaden Philadelphia’s understanding of Vietnamese cuisine beyond pho and bánh mì, centering its menu on dishes from across Vietnam’s regions. Among its specialties are lemongrass clams and a catfish hot pot, dishes rarely found elsewhere in the city.
For Nguyen, Gabriella’s also fulfilled a longtime personal ambition.
“I came to the U.S. and went to school for my family, not for me,” said Nguyen, who left the University of Pennsylvania one English composition class short of completing an undergraduate degree in biochemistry. “I wanted to make a business like my family did.”
She told The Inquirer’s Craig LaBan that her parents own a seafood market in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, and initially disapproved when she entered the restaurant business with her husband, Chris.
The couple began building their restaurant company in the suburbs in 2012, opening Banh Mi Bar & Bistro in Norristown, followed by Melody’s Grillhouse in Ambler. Gabriella’s Vietnam, named for their younger daughter, marked a shift toward a more ambitious menu focused on traditional Vietnamese cooking beyond the country’s best-known dishes.
Nguyen hopes her next restaurant will have a full liquor license, allowing her to expand the beverage program alongside the food. Gabriella’s now operates under a satellite license through Five Saints Distilling that permits it to serve Pennsylvania-produced spirits, including the vodka used in its signature pho cocktail.
Developing those drinks sparked an unexpected passion for mixology, Nguyen said, and she envisions her next restaurant having a larger cocktail program and a menu of bar snacks to complement its Vietnamese cuisine.
“I had several restaurants in the suburbs, but when I came to Philly, I realized Philly was really missing traditional Vietnamese food besides bánh mì,” Nguyen said. “There are so many other foods popular in Vietnam that don’t get as much focus. And I want people to try it.”
The Korean-owned yard’s leaders thought they had found just the place, four miles by barge down the Delaware River at the New Jersey-funded Paulsboro facility, vacated by the offshore wind industry when President Donald Trump killed that program. In December, Hanwha agreed to take over the lease.
Philadelphia Shipyard as seen from southbound I-95 in 2024.Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer
This despite the fact Hanwha’s proposal enjoyed support from federal, state, and local officials and even made it into the U.S. military budget for fiscal year 2026, which called for $110 million “to support shipbuilding industrial capacity” and steel fabrication in a manufacturing facility “formerly used for offshore wind manufacturing.”
Paulsboro Mayor John Giovannitti estimates that on a given day, there are fewer than 50 workers at the port.
Leo Holt, whose century-old company runs ports in Gloucester City and South Philadelphia, said he’s not completely averse to manufacturing around the Paulsboro terminal after his family’s plans to beef up container and bulk shipping there accelerate.
Hanwha declined to comment, confirming only that the shipyard is still looking for space “in the U.S.”
A rendering of a 600-acre shipyard that the Port of Tampa Bay has offered to build for Hanwha. Port Tampa Bay
What went wrong?
Since the early 2010s, New Jersey borrowed and spent more than $500 million building a Paulsboro wharf, highway ramps, and other facilities to attract big employers to the port. It replaced lost oil industry jobs and also compensated for nearby Camden’s loss of piers due to Holtec Inc.’s redevelopment in that city’s aging port district.
In borrowing documents and news releases, the public spending was justified by predictions that the port would draw hundreds, even thousands, of port and industrial jobs, which in more than a decade have yet to arrive.
Paulsboro sublets the facility to Holt as the port operator. Holt paid $1.6 million to use the property last year.
At the urging of then-Gov. Phil Murphy, then-State Senate President and iron workers union leader Steve Sweeney, then-Paulsboro Mayor John Burzichelli, and other officials, Holt in 2020 agreed to let EEW, a global pipemaker based in Germany, build supports up to 400 feet long and 40 feet across for the federally subsidized offshore wind-electric generation facilities that its Danish partner Orsted planned to locate off the New Jersey coast.
Orsted canceled in 2023, citing rising costs. Trying to cut his company’s losses, EEW executive vice president Esben Strandgaard began looking for new tenants, attracting more than 200 inquiries and initiating talks with Hanwha.
Hanwha needed the landlord’s permission to take over the lease. Hanwha Defense USA president Tom Anderson, a retired Navy rear admiral, and the Holts met last fall to discuss the proposal.
Instead of approving, the Holts sued, challenging EEW’s authority to pick a replacement and demanding control of the facility.
Hanwha, aided by its political supporters, tried to make a deal, but Holt stood firm. In March, Hanwha canceled the agreement.
What the Holts want
“The north star for redevelopment at Paulsboro has been marine terminal operations,” said Leo Holt, president of the Gloucester City-based company. “We stretched to assist the state in any way we could,” but “Hanwha was never a part of the plan, nor was shipbuilding.”
Holt spoke of the failed industrial proposals — wind, shipbuilding, and others to build power plant equipment on site — as an obstacle, not a goal.
“The detour imposed on New Jersey is over, and the road is clear to the Paulsboro Marine Terminal,” he said. “We were glad to see that the page was turned on the detour.”
Holt Logistics, which has been expanding containerized cargo facilities on both sides of the river, has shipped containers to Paulsboro and hopes to augment Paulsboro’s current port tenants, Holt said.
Those include Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK), owned by Russian billionaire Vladimir Lisin, which due to Ukraine war sanctions stopped importing Russian steel through the port for its plant in Farrell, Pa., and has switched to steel from Latin America, East Asia, and other countries, according to Holt.
The port also ships containers to the U.S. Navy base in Rota, Spain, and to ports in Cyprus, Israel, and other Mediterranean countries.
More than a container port
New Jersey has spent more than half a billion dollars improving the Paulsboro site with a wharf, highway connections to I-295, and other public works, the mayor said.
“I’m not aware of Paulsboro people, Gloucester County people, working there right now,” said Burzichelli, now a state senator and a supporter of both the wind and the Hanwha projects.
New Jersey invested in the BP site to make it more than a container port, Burzichelli says.
“That [state-built] wharf was designed to handle any industry, and the public investment was designed to create the maximum amount of high-paying jobs that can be created,” he said.
The port section “was always intended to be a bulk port,” requiring plenty of longshoremen’s labor, and “certainly not a container port,” which “take up a lot of space but don’t generate big jobs,” Burzichelli said.
“They don’t pay taxes the way an [industrial] building will pay,” he added.
The Holts’ “choices and the interest of the state of New Jersey, the interests of Gloucester County, and the interests of the borough of Paulsboro, are not aligned, at this point,” Burzichelli said. “I hope we can get them aligned.”
Mayor Giovannitti said, “We thought we had a deal last year with Hanwha” but are left with “a $750,000 hole in our budget” — the annual payment, in lieu of taxes, that EEW and its partners paid the borough while it was operating. The town’s annual budget is $13 million.
Instructors and graduates of the union-backed preapprenticeship program Global Skills Union Pathways Project at Philly Hanwha Shipyard in February.GSUPP
What Paulsboro could offer
Strandgaard says he’s not surprised Hanwha decided not to “waste any more of their time” on Paulsboro: “They could not see themselves working with a hostile landlord.”
It’s an ideal site for shipbuilding or any other industry that needs a deep water port, he said. But “Holt Logistics really controls what comes in and out. This was very upsetting, for us and Hanwha, that Hanwha with the support of the Navy did not have enough leverage.”
Other East Coast sites would take a year or more to prepare. “The beauty of Paulsboro is they could start the day after” concluding a deal, Strandgaard said.
He said he was surprised the new administration of New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill didn’t make landing Hanwha a priority.
Sherrill was “disappointed that EEW could not reach an agreement with Hanwha or other parties despite the state’s efforts to facilitate discussions and bring stakeholders together,” spokesperson Maggie Garbarino said in a statement.
Holt’s goal: A modern marine terminal
On any given day, between 500 and 900 Holt employees are moving cargo at the company’s South Jersey operations, Holt said. He declined to estimate how many of those were in Paulsboro.
According to tax records, the port handled about 250,000 tons of cargo last year. That’s less than one-tenth of all South Jersey Port Corp. cargoes.
Holt called the state “vital partners in the renovation of the facility. We are working to have both marine operations and manufacturing operations. But we cannot be deterred from taking it where we promised: to be an active modern marine terminal.”
He said he expects the Sherrill administration will prove to be more congenial to the Holts’ vision for the property — “manufacturing, distribution, or anything” that makes sense to his family.
South Jersey officials say they haven’t given up. “The people of Paulsboro were told this was about jobs, jobs, jobs, and those would be manufacturing jobs. Not stacking containers four high with automated forklifts,” Giovannitti said.
Burzichelli still hopes Hanwha and Holt can be brought to the same page. “Many of us still don’t think we are done with manufacturing,” he said.
Occasionally, I get to share good news in this space. Wu Shaoping — the Chinese dissident who fled to America but was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a Central Pennsylvania traffic stop — was freed from ICE’s Moshannon Valley Processing Center Friday night, not long after my column dropped and a couple ofmembers of Congress pressed for his release. His asylum case is still pending. I’ve learned there’s actually a lot more to this story — stay tuned.
The Trump regime is shifting billions from college into AI. That’s no accident.
People take photos near a John Harvard statue on the Harvard University campus in 2024 in Cambridge, Mass.Steven Senne
The U.S. government has become pretty stingy when it comes to finding money for human beings — just ask any struggling single mother in Mississippi needing food stamps, or a physician in Africa waiting on vaccines that no longer arrive through American foreign aid programs.
But Washington always seems to have an open wallet for computers.
In fact, the very first one — ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), constructed right here in Philadelphia on the University of Pennsylvania campus as World War II came to an end — was funded by the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps at a cost of about $7 million in today’s dollars. Over the years, billions of dollars in federal funding would fuel key moments in the Computer Age, including the creation of the internet, which was also a Pentagon project.
Still, there was something chilling about last week’s report from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy that called for a surge in research aid in one area: computers and robots using artificial intelligence, or AI. The nuts-and-bolts of the paper — “Science: A New Golden Age” — highlighted a new, more-than-$5 billion commitment for an AI-in-science program called the Genesis Mission.
But the White House paper also called for a radical shift in the way the federal government pays for science, with a massive move of $200 billion away from funding research and basic science at top universities — the system that has thrived since the time of ENIAC — and toward individuals and more directly applied AI projects, including those at private tech companies.
Goodbye, John Harvard. Hello, Claude.
“This plan raises profound concerns about the future of publicly funded science,” the top union leaders for educators — Todd Wolfson of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) — said in a joint statement last week. “It does nothing to make anyone healthier or safer, and it isn’t what Americans want.”
Wolfson, Weingarten, and other critics of the new science scheme from the Trump regime say it unravels long-standing protections for academic freedom and transparency on campuses in favor of a process that’s ripe for political interference. “This is a defining moment for American science,” the educators wrote.
Indeed, while the federal funding gains for AI are still mostly theoretical, the cuts for research projects on college campuses across the United States have been underway since Donald Trump took office in January 2025, and the impact has already been dramatic.
The playing field is complex, but a recent deep analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice found that the Trump administration successfully froze about $3 billion in previously approved grants for scientific research, is imposing a scheme to slash an additional $4 billion, and issued a budget proposal calling for a whopping $44 billion additional reduction.
The analysis noted that “these midstream freezes and cancelations have ripple effects far beyond the nominal dollars involved, prompting layoffs, interrupting careers, and destabilizing the budgets of research universities.”
But now it feels like the White House is stating the quiet part out loud: The bigger goal is simply to build smarter computers, even if that means humans get dumber. Intelligent robots still don’t vote in elections, after all, but poorly educated people do.
Ironically, the regime’s rationale for spending our tax dollars on making AI more powerful regurgitates a Cold War mentality that, on the surface, sounds like the reasons behind decades of massive college research funding and programs like the space race of the 1960s or the nuclear arms buildup: to stay one step ahead of the communists — this time in China.
The difference between then and now is that after World War II, Washington made a conscious effort to fund basic science and free inquiry as a way to distinguish the United States from the rigid planned economy of our then-biggest adversary, the Soviet Union. Now, the White House seeks to copy Beijing’s centralized planning. Can we truly promote science without lifting up the actual scientists?
Trump’s “Golden Future of Science” feels more like an extremely narrow wind tunnel. The irony is that many of today’s politicians in both parties see higher education as mainly workforce development, even as corporate recruiters say what they really want are more broadly educated critical thinkers. In other words, the AI era actually screams out for a boost for the humanities like literature or philosophy — the types of majors that are getting crushed in the Trump era.
An epic battle is looming between those obsessed with a new nuclear arms race around AI — especially the Silicon Valley billionaires who stand to gain and who, not coincidentally, have heavily funded the second coming of Trump — and a public that doesn’t want our communities ruined by noisy, energy-guzzling data centers that aim to take away our jobs while making reading a lost art.
A government scheme to build better computers while rendering humans obsolete used to be the stuff of dystopian science fiction. Maybe we can keep it that way before it’s too late.
Yo, do this!
About once a year or so, I write, “Yo, actually maybe don’t do this.” Last weekend, I ventured out of my underground lair to join every other American in devoting three hours to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. To say I was underwhelmed would be, well, an understatement. The movie was a funeral for the now totally lost art of movie dialogue, amid a plot that meandered from gouge-your-one-eye-out boring to bursts of incomprehensible violence. It was a metaphor — Troy was My Lai, apparently — that got terribly lost at sea. But I do feel there’s something happening here. First the World Cup, now this mediocre whale of a motion picture: Americans are desperate to bea part of something, anything, that is bigger than our politics.
Regular readers know I’m a huge fan of the CNN modern history documentaries they now call the Decades Series, but the original format of politics, TV, and music did have gaping holes. A few years ago, they backfilled with a series on The Movies of our post-World War II world. Now, finally, Decades in Sports arrives on CNN with back-to-back episodes (presumably the 1960s and ‘70s) on Sunday night at 9 p.m. I can’t wait. Spoiler alert: Havlicek stole the ball.
Another thing you may have noticed is that Rep. Ro Khanna, who meandered west after Council Rock High School in Bucks County and became the congressman from Silicon Valley, is something of a friend of the newsletter. He’s back in our area frequently, and he’ll be at Philadelphia’s Parkway Central Library on Tuesday at 6 p.m. to deliver a special speech: “America at a Crossroads: A Vision for the Future on our 250th Anniversary.” He’ll talk about his background growing up here as the son of immigrants and the need for economic freedom that ends gross corruption and inequality — go check it out.
Ask me anything
Question: Who should be DNC [Democratic National Committee] chair? And does it matter? — Martha (@marthagrant.bsky.social) via Bluesky
Answer: It does matter. Despite everything else that’s happening in the world right now, one of the more revealing stories of the last week was the New York Times article about Democrats in disarray, focusing on embattled DNC chair Ken Martin, who before the 2024 election was the state leader in Minnesota. Under Martin, the party is sliding deeper in debt, and there are complaints about an abrasive personal style, the botched “autopsy” of the 2024 election, and the Democrats’ muddled message. A change should be made as soon as possible. Hopefully, party leaders could rectify the mistake of not picking Wisconsin’s more skilled ex-party chief, Ben Wikler. The problem is that, under the constant assault of GOP fascism, Dems need to fix this plane while it is flying at 37,000 feet.
What you’re saying about …
There was an excellent response to last week’s question about what a future Democratic president should do on Day One to erase the stench from two Donald Trump presidencies. I wish I could reprint all the suggestions, but recurring themes included a rapid purge of any Trump holdovers, abolishing ICE and related immigration raiders, and a speedy effort to prosecute the many wrongdoers. The two most frequent suggestions included major reform of the judiciary, from fixing the mangled immigration courts to ethics reform, and definitely an expansion of the U.S. Supreme Court. Mark Cohen suggested two more federal appeals courts and then “assign a Supreme Court justice to each one, bringing a total of 13 justices to the Court for fixed term of 18 years.” Another theme was erasing Trump’s various renovations to the District of Columbia. The ex-congressman Joe Hoeffel wrote, “Strip all the cheesy gold out of the Oval Office.”
📮 This week’s question: Speaking of Democrats, some top party officials like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries seem to think the November election is primarily about “affordability.” That seems to miss the bigger moment, but I’m curious: What pithy message would you like to see Dems run on this fall? Please email me your answer and put the exact phrase “Democratic message” in the subject line.
Backstory on the Gen Z revolution rocking India
Protesters participate in a demonstration demanding educational reforms as part of the Cockroach Janta Party’s ongoing protest movement in New Delhi on July 25.Vipin
Last October, I wrote a column, with great interest and enthusiasm, about a growing revolution of Gen Z 20-somethings that was taking place across the global south — from Madagascar to Peru to Nepal, and elsewhere — who were fed up with the political corruption of grown-ups and threatening to topple governments. I wondered if this very online youth activism might spread to the United States or other more developed nations, but over the coming months, the momentum for these protesters and their Japanese anime pirate flags seemed to fade. The so-called Gen Z revolution looked like a historical footnote.
But it turns out that the embers of youth unrest were still smoldering, and this summer they have reignited in a big way in the world’s largest — if deeply flawed — democracy: India. And as is so often thecase, the spark was something nobody saw coming: a nationwide exam for entrance to medical school taken by roughly two million students, which the government moved to scrap after allegations that some of the questions had leaked. Some young people who’d studied for months for the exam took tothe streets in protest, and — as so often happens — a repressive police response only caused these demonstrations to get bigger. So did a comment from India’s chief justice, who described young, unemployed Indians as “cockroaches.”
That gave the protests a name when Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old graduate of Boston University, posted on the social media platform X that he was starting the “Cockroach Janta Party” — a wordplay on the Indian authoritarian-minded leader Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. Incredibly, this “CJP” has seen its protests — calling successfully for the resignation of the education secretary and for other deeper reforms, using tactics such as sit-ins and hunger strikes — spread to some 30 cities while clogging the streets of the capital, New Delhi. The movement has become arguably the biggest threat to Modi’s strongman rule since the leader’s ascension in 2014.
All of which raises the same question I posed last fall: Could it happen here? In one sense, it already has. On Friday, about 500 Indian students and other members of the U.S.-based diaspora gathered under a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Manhattan’s Union Square to express support for the “cockroaches” of their native country. Meanwhile, the kind of pressures that caused India’s youth to erupt — government meddling in higher education, diminished job prospects in a time of rising AI, to name two — are also found in the United States. Young people almost never protest over the same stuff that riles up their parents, as shown by the gray hairs that have populated the No Kings rallies against Donald Trump. When lightning strikes, it will probably be something as unexpected as a college entry exam. But thunderstorms are definitely in the forecast.
What I wrote on this date in 2019
A culture of death permeates the Donald Trump regime, from the doomed fishing boats of the Caribbean to an Iranian girls’ school to the scores now dying in immigration detention cells. But this is not exactly new. The seeds were planted in the first Trump presidency, when his attorney general, William Barr, led a push to revive the death penalty for federal prisoners in a big way. On July 28, 2019, I asked: “What took the American Caligula so long to bring back the spectacle of executions to electrify the masses (but not the prisoners … they’d be lethally injected) and juice his 2020 reelection campaign? Indeed, the five executions are scheduled around the Christmas holiday, presumably to remind us of its pagan roots.”
In 2026, I’ve been very focused on the individuals whose world has been turned upside down — or, in some cases, ended prematurely — by the horrors of life in these authoritarian United States. Last week, I took a deep dive into the story of Wu Shaoping, a Chinese dissident who fled his likely detainment by Xi Jinping’s regime and made it to Pennsylvania with his wife and teen daughter, only to get arrested at a traffic stop, turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and detained. The outcry may have had something to do with ICE’s release of Wu shortly after the column ran. Over the weekend, I wrote about the police killing of Corey Ruiz in Madison, Wisc. — noting that the shootings of civilians by cops have only increased since the massive George Floyd protest marches of 2020. I urged an end to the new numbness about police violence in America.
You didn’t really think I could make it all the way through the newsletter without mentioning the face that launched 1,000 hot takes: basketball king LeBron James. He stunned not just the sports world but America’s founding city by announcing Friday that he is taking his aging but still considerable talents to South Philadelphia, hoping to grab one last title with a completely revamped 76ers. Has there been any other story since then? The Inquirer has told you about the first time James played at the Palestra, his new uniform (No. 23), the speculation over how he will (or won’t) gel with the rest of the Sixers, the speculation over where he might live, hisrelationship with Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid, and on and on and on. Just wait until he actually takes the court this fall! Actually, don’t wait. Subscribe to The Inquirer today, slam dunk the paywall, and read every story from now until the hoped-for parade down Broad Street.
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South Philadelphia’s FDR Park now has its Welcome Center partially open to the public, with a public bathroom available for use and volunteers working an information desk seven days a week.
“Do you need help finding anything?” a chipper volunteer asked, sticking her head out of the information center entrance during the blistering heat wave in July.
The information desk is inside the Welcome Center and has been staffed since around late June, according to Philadelphia Parks and Recreation spokesperson Ra’Chelle Rogers. The restroom and information desk are open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays, with closing extended to 5 p.m. on weekends.
The air-conditioned respite from the heat showcases FDR’s programming, not limited to jazz in the park, community boating, and birding — all for free.
Friends of FDR Park, the nonprofit that advocates for the 348-acre space, is also selling houseplants, seeds native to the park, and crocheted flowers as fundraisers.
“FDR Park has always been a place that brings people together, and it’s rewarding to see the Welcome Center now offering the everyday amenities this community has long deserved — from public restrooms to visitor resources,” said Parks and Recreation Commissioner Susan Slawson, adding she was “grateful to everyone who stuck with us throughout this process.”
The newly repurposed FDR Park Welcome Center, located on the east side of the Pattison Lagoon near the Broad Street and Pattison Avenue entrance to the park pictured on Wednesday, June 11, 2025 in South Philadelphia. The space, originally built in 1919, was used as a guard house and stables in the past.Erin Blewett / For The Inquirer
The former guardhouse and horse stables that now make up the Welcome Center and abutting offices for park staff underwent a $12 million renovation in 2022 that was completed last summer. The renovated space integrated the original guardhouse and stables’ design and restored some of the windows, doors, glazed brickwork, and original hardware, according to the conservancy.
The Welcome Center will eventually feature a handful of food vendors, but Philadelphia Parks and Recreation has no timeline for that yet, as the city would have to seek requests for proposals, according to Rogers.
When fully operational, the Welcome Center will have 3,800 square feet of event space available that should be able to accommodate up to 200 guests for community meetings, according to the Fairmount Park Conservancy, which raised half the funds associated with the center’s renovation and is managing FDR’s larger once-in-a-generation overhaul. Additional bathrooms will eventually be available inside.
For now, park visitors can grab a seat outside the Welcome Center, where several bright orange tables overlook a field of wildflowers.
Park lovers willing to guide visitors can volunteer to help at the information desk through the Friends of FDR Park.
For decades, Washington Avenue’s Ba Le Bakery has been practically synonymous with bánh mì in Philadelphia, and not only for the beautifully composed Vietnamese sandwiches sold on-site. Ba Le has set the standard for bánh mìs elsewhere. The bakery supplies rolls, crisp with fluffy interiors, to dozens of wholesale customers as far away as upstate New York, and is also our area’s primary producer of Vietnamese bologna, which comes in many variations, from fried pork with pepper to steamed pork wrapped in banana leaves.
But this Philadelphia institution has siblings all over the United States, all operating independently of each other.There are Ba Les in Hawai’i, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, and California. Each bakes its own bread and has the same core menu of bánh mìs, summer rolls, house-made pates, and girthy tubes of Vietnamese bologna and fried pork rolls. They all share the same origin story and founder, Le Vo, who went by the nickname “Ba Le.”
Lemongrass chicken and bbq pork bánh mìs at Ba Le Bakery on Thursday, July 16, 2026, in Philadelphia.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Growing up in southern Vietnam, Le was the third of several siblings (“ba” means “three”).He launched the business that would become Ba Le as a Saigon sandwich cart in the 1950s, selling his bánh mìs prototypes.He grew the business to several carts before departing the country with his family in 1972 for San Jose, California, where he started the first stateside Ba Le in 1982. Le helped three of hisdaughters open Ba Le locations in different American cities over the next couple decades.
Workers shape rolls at Ba Le Bakery on Thursday, July 16, 2026, in Philadelphia.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
There are just a few regional differences among Ba Le menus across the country, a reflection of their geographic locations. The shrimp chips at the Ba Le in Falls Church, Virginia, are BBQ-flavored. In Alhambra, California, Ba Le Sandwich Shop sells smoothies and yogurt along with head cheese and vermicelli. The 20 or so Ba Le outposts in Hawai’i serve Spam, locally caught fish like opakapaka, and saimin, the islands’ beloved noodle soup.
In Philadelphia, where Le and daughter Thi Nguyen opened Ba Le in 1998, grandson Victor Nguyen, 40, has just unleashed a veritable library of Vietnamese pantry items not found in any other branch of the family business. It’s not the only change the third-generation owner has made.
The new line of Sieu Xot sauces at Ba Le Bakery on Thursday, July 16, 2026, in Philadelphia.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Victor Nguyen officiallytook the reins of Washington Avenue’s Ba Le in 2024. Perhaps you’ve seen the storefront’s brand-new caramel-colored signage — sporting an Eiffel Tower logo, as all Ba Le bakeries do — which can now be spotted from many blocks away. Or maybe you’ve noticed that, after years of resisting an online presence beyond a Facebook profile, Ba Le Bakery has a website. You might even be surprised to find a slew of new, hip matcha-based drinks joining the traditional Vietnamese coffees on the beverage menu, as well as gourmet snacks and “shoppy shop” products you’d expect at Biederman’s or Rittenhouse’s Cork.
The exterior of Ba Le Bakery on Thursday, July 16, 2026, in Philadelphia.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Today’s Ba Le Bakery stocks truffle- and brie-flavored potato chips imported from France andupmarket tinned fish alongside takeout containers of house-made bánh cuốn (rice rolls stuffed with pork). The selection appeals to a post-pandemic pantry-obsessed demographic, but it still has a firm hold on its old customer base.Before the lunch rush, you’ll still see Cantonese-speaking ladies clutching designer handbags stocking up on Vietnamese lunch platters that feature Chinese-style barbecue pork.
Summer rolls on display at Ba Le Bakery on Thursday, July 16, 2026, in Philadelphia.Monica Herndon / Staff PhotographerFrom left: Pork ribs, rice crepes with pork bologna, and a vegetarian stir fry at Ba Le Bakery on Thursday, July 16, 2026, in Philadelphia.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Nguyen trained for more than half his life to take over Ba Le. From the age of 17, “I have filled every single position in the bakery, from serving customers, all areas of the kitchen, facility maintenance, and office management,” he said. His first job was making and wrapping many different types of bolognas (fried, steamed, mixed with sea snails on the weekend, and more), which he did for five years.
He has big plans to continue to pull Ba Le into the future, renovating the 6,000-square-foot store in stages over the next four years; moving some operations off-site, to another family-owned space on Columbus Boulevard; and expanding the bakery’s online business, which is currently run out of Ba Le’s former restaurant in the back of the building.
Pork bologna on display at Ba Le Bakery on Thursday, July 16, 2026, in Philadelphia.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
In a great departure from the family tradition of naming everything after its patriarch, Nguyen named his new line of sauces Sieu Xot (pronounced “see-yoo sot”), which means “super sauce.” The 20-sauce line includes sweet and savory dressings for salads, marinades for chicken, spicy garlic and chili-spiked fish sauces, zesty kaffir lime leaf-speckled sauces, and some funky fermented sauces that Nguyen’s Vietnamese customers have long had to make for themselves. “Making some of our traditional sauces can stink up your house,” Nguyen said with a laugh. “I think people are relieved to not make them at home now.”
“This has always been a dream of my mom’s,” he said. “Creating this sauce line makes introducing Vietnamese flavors into households more accessible and easy.” Nguyen also hopes that the sauces will encourage home cooks toexperiment.
The sauce line might be Nguyen’s mother’s dream, but the execution is all Nguyen’s, from the flavors to the branding, which evokes art deco Saigon (with zero Eiffel Towers), created by Tyler School of Art and Architecture student Zoe Nguyen (no relation). While many of the sauces are based on traditional Vietnamese recipes,about a third of the line is Nguyen’s own invention — his signature is kumquat-cilantro dipping sauce. Taken as a whole, the new line is part of Nguyen’s agenda to put his own stamp on the family legacy.
The new line of Sieu Xot sauces at Ba Le Bakery on Thursday, July 16, 2026 in Philadelphia.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
“All of my efforts, whether it’s within our store or through our online channels, is to usher in my own perspective of Vietnamese food,” he said.
Emil DeJohn, 88, of Ambler, celebrated clothing designer, longtime college department chair and professor of fashion, lecturer, volunteer, and mentor to generations of designers, tailors, dressers, models, and students, died Wednesday, June 24, of a heart attack at his home.
Born in Philadelphia, Professor DeJohn worked for 37 years with Bill Blass and other notable clothing designers on Seventh Avenue in New York, and for 21 years as chair of the fashion department at Moore College of Art and Design, director of fashion career development at Drexel University, and professor of fashion at the now-closed Art Institute of Philadelphia.
He designed clothing of all kinds for men, women, and children for Jones New York, OshKosh B’Gosh, and other international labels from 1960 to 1997. He established his own label, Alex DeJohn by Emil, in the 1980s, and his creations appeared on the covers of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and other magazines.
Several of his gowns were offered to singer Barbra Streisand in the 1960s, and he received design compliments from, among others, film star Elizabeth Taylor and Andre Leon Talley, former editor-at-large at Vogue. In the 1980s, he was chosen by then-first lady Nancy Reagan to design a colorful clothing collection promoting her “Just Say No” antidrug campaign.
In New York, Professor DeJohn showed designs at Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Macy’s. In Philadelphia, he showed at Bonwit Teller and other top shops.
He also showed in London, Paris, Milan, Hong Kong, and elsewhere around the world. He lectured about fashion at other universities, represented the industry at high school career fairs, and mentored many young designers.
At fashion shows, they always gave him a front-row seat. “It’s an incredible profession,” he told The Inquirer in 2001. “Lots of ups and just as many downs. I wouldn’t trade one day.”
In 1997, looking to engage less with consumers and more with emerging designers, Professor DeJohn left the workshops and showrooms in New York for classrooms in Philadelphia. He spent six years as chair of the fashion design department at Moore, several years as director of fashion career development at Drexel, and finally retired in 2018 as a professor of fashion at the Art Institute.
At Moore, Professor DeJohn recruited Bob Mackie, Betsey Johnson, and other renowned designers to meet his students and provide internships and jobs. At Drexel, he oversaw the Crystal Star Award for design program and taught a class called Aspects of Fashion and Merchandising.
Professor DeJohn (left) attended many galas as director of the Crystal Award for design at Drexel. Emil DeJohn
He hosted a fashion club at the Art Institute and was named the school’s 2017 Teacher of the Year. “He was always happy to answer our questions and tell us about the industry,” a former student said in a tribute. Another said: “He inspired all of us to dream big.”
Professor DeJohn won the city’s Phashion Phest Philadelphia Award for design in 2001 and told The Inquirer: “Teaching the students has been a gift to me. I never envisioned anything I could enjoy more than designing. But this has become an amazing part of my life. I actually love coming to work.”
He earned other awards for design and his volunteer work at the Rowan House, the Ronald McDonald House, and other nonprofits. “He stood as a beacon of hope,” said his granddaughter Alexandra, “always making everyone feel like he believed in them, always bringing out what made them special.”
His granddaughter Isabella said: “His legacy continues to inspire me every day.”
Professor DeJohn met Bette Anne DeChiaro at a dance at the Shore when he was 17, and they married in 1963. Courtesy of the family
Emil Joseph DeJohn was born Dec. 20, 1937, in his mother’s bedroom in South Philadelphia. The youngest of three children, he discovered art in grade school, took art classes at Fleisher Art Memorial, and graduated from John Bartram High School.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts at the old Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art in 1959. He won the school’s design citation as a senior and worked at first as an illustrator for the Bulletin’s fashion pages.
He met Bette Anne DeChiaro at a dance at the Shore when he was 17, and they married in 1963. They had a daughter, Leisa, and a son, Christian, and lived in Center City, Wyncote, and Ambler.
Professor DeJohn liked antiques, flowers, and anything blue and white. He supported the old Carmelites monastery in Philadelphia and belonged to St. Luke the Evangelist Church in Glenside.
Professor DeJohn first became interested in art and fashion in grade school. Courtesy of the family
He made friends on his daily two-hour train rides to New York and said he never considered leaving Wyncote. “I loved leaving all that and coming home to cut the grass,” he told The Inquirer in 2001. “My neighbors didn’t even know what I did for a living.”
He designed his daughter’s wedding dress, took his granddaughters to mesmerizing fashion events, and made memorable trips to Ocean City, N.J., Longwood Gardens, New Hope, New Mexico, and Florida. He especially enjoyed decorating his home and Christmas tree with ornaments and live flowers.
“He made us all feel seen and special,” his daughter said. “He did that for everyone he met.”
In addition to his wife and children, Professor DeJohn is survived by four grandchildren, one great-granddaughter, and other relatives. A sister, a brother, and a son-in-law died earlier.
Professor DeJohn (right) said he would never leave Wyncote for New York. Courtesy of the family
Services were held earlier.
Donations in his name may be made to the Carmel of Jesus Crucified Monastery, Attn: Mother Pia, Box 308, Muenster, Texas 76252.
Professor DeJohn (second from right) enjoyed time with his family.Courtesy of the family
