A successful attorney whose father died when he was a toddler, Katz — who perished in a fiery plane crash Saturday outside Boston in the same week he and a partner bid successfully for the Philadelphia newspaper company — was raised by his mother Betty in the Parkside neighborhood of Camden, N.J.
Katz's largesse looms large in the city. He helped found the Boys & Girls Club in Parkside, just down the street from Camden High, where he graduated in 1959. It has a clubhouse named for Katz, 72, and his wife, Marjorie, who died in December.
"He's the reason the Boys & Girls Club of Camden County exists," said former Judge M. Allen Vogelson, who knew Katz from the time they were in high school.
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"He was the innovator behind that. It's so difficult to take this in."
Also part of Katz's legacy — and his birthright — were Jewish Community Centers in Cherry Hill, N.J., and Margate, N.J., named for his parents and the establishment of a Hebrew school in Voorhees, N.J.
While his main residence was in New York, Katz maintained the practice of Katz, Ettin & Levine in Cherry Hill, where he also had a home.
In 2012, he founded KATZ Academy, part of the Camden Charter School Network and a K-4 school with campuses in the Parkside and Rosedale neighborhoods.
(The president of the school's board of trustees, Marcella Dalsey, also died in the crash, as did Susan Asbell, wife of attorney and former Camden County Prosecutor Sam Asbell.)
This is a tragic end to a very great life. Lewis was a very caring and very philanthropic man.
Bill Simon, former Camden County sheriff and freeholder d! irector"He has a personal commitment to Camden," Milford Liss, the Boys & Girls Club's executive director, told the (Cherry Hill, N.J.) Courier-Post in 2003. "To create better opportunities and a better life for kids."
But Cherry Hill was Katz's base in the '70s, when he was known in political circles as a member of the Camden County Board of Freeholders.
After attending Temple University and Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle, Pa. — he worked briefly for national political columnist Drew Pearson — Katz opened his own law practice in 1966.
He was elected to the freeholder board in 1972 and named chairman of the Cherry Hill Democratic organization in 1976.
According to a Courier-Post story at the time, he and former Camden County sheriff and Freeholder Director Bill Simon were touted as the "boy wonders" of local politics, though both Democrats sparred over county issues.
"This is a tragic end to a very great life," said Simon, who ran for freeholder at the same time as Katz. "Lewis was a very caring and very philanthropic man.
"I don't know how many times he did things for people and he never wanted anyone to know about it."
Marjorie Katz was at one time a Catholic school teacher in Haddonfield, N.J. They are survived by two children, Melissa and Drew.
Katz's success story took a bizarre turn in 1977, when he was seriously beaten by an assailant outside his law office. It was reported at the time Katz had just parked his car at his office on the morning of March 1 when a man approached asking directions to a bus stop.
After Katz acquiesced, he was beaten.
No one was ever convicted in the case, but rumors abounded that the attack might have been the work of a mob associate. Five months later, Katz's law office was burglarized, and shortly after that, there was an unsuccessful attempt to burn down Simon's summer home, according to Courier-Post reports.
If you believed in a cause and asked him to help, he would be right behind yo! u and do ! anything for you. He never forgot where he came from, and he did so much for Camden.
Bernie Platt, funeral director and former mayorIn October of 1977, Katz announced he would resign from the freeholder board, citing "personal considerations" and a state Supreme Court decision that prohibited freeholders from practicing law in their own counties.
"There comes a point in one's life where one decides it is time to re-evaluate goals," Katz noted at the time.
"I just decided my drive and effectiveness had diminished to the point where I thought it would be better to step aside and give someone else a chance."
But while Katz went on to make millions in New York parking lots, headed an outdoor advertising company and eventually merged his Nets with the fabled New York Yankees, he maintained his ties to Cherry Hill and Camden.
Former township mayor and funeral director Bernie Platt is handling arrangements for both Katz and Asbell at Platt Memorial Chapels.
"Lewis was a great guy," Platt said Sunday. "If you believed in a cause and asked him to help, he would be right behind you and do anything for you.
"He never forgot where he came from, and he did so much for Camden."
Katz was in the city of his youth one Friday in November 2003, for a business panel at Rutgers University-Camden. Along with a restaurateur and a banking executive, he advised about 100 students to make sure success in business was balanced with a happy life.
"It's not a crazy idea," Katz said then. "Find a quiet place where you can be alone with your own thoughts, where you can tune out the noise, and focus on solving the issues of your life."
Ironically for the man who would later spar over ownership of a newspaper company, Katz also told the students: "Let go of ego. Learn to say, 'I don't need another deal. I've got enough.' "
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