🏀 Remembering a young star | Morning Newsletter

Happy Monday, Philadelphia! Hope we all had a good weekend.

The death of a 20-year-old former All-Public League guard has gutted his community. North Philly’s Jadin Aviles was a star athlete with a bright smile and maturity beyond his years.

Read more ☕ An inclusive coffee shop | Inquirer South Jersey

Developers are marketing new Navy Yard apartment complexes as “Philadelphia’s newest neighborhood,” and some who live there say they love it. But about 70% of the units remain empty.

Plus, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is running record deficits, making the next few years financially rocky, and more news of the day.

— Sam Stewart ([email protected])

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The first thing people noticed about Jadin Aviles was his smile. It was bright and big, and became part of his identity. To many, Aviles, with his beaming smile, was brightness incarnate.

Aviles brought the same energy to basketball. He played in two youth leagues as well as on his high school team. Aviles wasn’t competing in front of a packed Palestra, but he did become a “street legend” in North Philadelphia, according to those who knew him.

Now, his community is trying to keep his spirit alive. On May 12, Aviles was riding his moped in a bike lane on Aramingo Avenue. A pickup truck, turning left, ran him over. Aviles suffered extensive brain damage, and died that night. He had just turned 20.

Perhaps the best way to honor him is to emulate him, some believe. To tell young people about a giant on the court and a leader off it, who was so remarkable, and so loved, that he drew hundreds to his funeral.

Since moving into the new apartments at South Philly’s converted military base in January, Priya Brown said her daily routine has gotten much more relaxing — with far fewer brake lights. An assistant buyer at Anthropologie, Brown walks 10 minutes to her office at Urban Outfitters’ Navy Yard headquarters.

AVE, the national apartment brand run by Korman Communities, is calling its neighboring Navy Yard complexes, Constitution and Normandy, “Philadelphia’s newest neighborhood.”

More than a third of the 347 units in Constitution are leased, according to Sam Korman, AVE’s director of operations. Next door at Normandy, which opened this spring, more than 20% of the 267 units are leased, according to Korman.

Navy Yard stakeholders eventually want the property to have 4,000 apartments, along with more retail space and a second hotel, according to its 2022 redevelopment plan.

When art world veteran Daniel H. Weiss took over the Philadelphia Museum of Art in December, he quickly recruited a new team, including a chief financial officer and chief fundraiser. That team has begun to assess the museum’s financial condition and what can be done about it.

Read more Is building a data center on a Superfund site safe? Construction has started on one in Chester County.

The picture that is emerging is not a pretty one.

The “Olympics of Math” is in Philadelphia’s Convention Center for the first time ever. What’s the event called?

A) American Mathematics Competition

B) International Mathematical Olympiad

C) International Congress of Mathematicians

D) William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition

Think you know? Check your answer.

👀 Wanting: The collaboration tote from Wawa and Lands’ End that harnesses three separate trends into one sandwich-sized bag. The Inquirer’s Kiki Aranita is obsessed (and so am I.)

🤩 Inspired by: A Philly tech founder who was a monk, worked for Meta, and is now building tech for local government. Lilly Chen wants people to stop thinking local government software “sucks.”

👠 Analyzing: Our favorite looks from the WNBA All-Star Weekend. Some highlights include Breanna Stewart’s family fits to A’ja Wilson’s gown.

Hint: 🏀 The King

JOBS MARLEEN

Email us if you know the answer. We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here.

Cheers to Nick Muzzillo, who solved Sunday’s anagram: Cecily Tynan. The beloved meteorologist is retiring after more than three decades at 6abc, a trailblazing career spanning major weather events like Hurricane Sandy, the Blizzard of 1996, and flooding in Philly following Hurricane Ida.

Think back to the night that changed your life that could only happen in Philly, a true example of the Philly spirit, the time you finally felt like you belonged in Philly if you’re not a lifer, something that made you fall in love with Philly all over again — or proud to be from here if you are. Then email it to us for a chance to be featured in the Monday edition of this newsletter.

This “only in Philly” story comes from reader Jeffrey Rosenberg, who describes arriving in Philly:

I arrived in Philly in late August of 1978, after receiving early admission to Temple University’s dental school.

I had never been to Philadelphia and there was no GPS back then, so I entered this town on South Broad Street. You can imagine my surprise while I was driving up Broad to get to North Philadelphia. What were cars doing parked in the middle of a busy street?

Proceeding with caution, my next surprise was literally running into City Hall. That was the only way to get to TUDS (the nickname for Temple University’s dental school.)

I drove through Temple’s main campus, a much rougher looking neighborhood back then, and arrived at 3223 North Broad Street, my new home and professional training for the next four years.

My first night in my new town, my girlfriend from Boston told me her sister went to Philadelphia College of Art and that there was a really cool restaurant with cold cucumber soup, so we went looking for it. We had no name and no map.

I lived by Olney High School, so I just pointed my car south toward City Hall.

I arrived at Fourth and South Streets an hour later to a hip looking area called South Street. We walked into a hip looking restaurant named Lickity Split, and guess what they had? Cold cucumber soup.

I never really left South Street after that. I set up my dental office at 4th and Bainbridge before I even graduated.

I practiced there for the next 40 years.

👋 Have a good one, folks!

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