Lewis Katz, Who Co-Owned Nets, Devils, Inquirer, Dies at 72

Lewis Katz, a parking, billboard and sports mogul who through the years owned the New JerseyNets basketball team, New Jersey Devils hockey team and, most recently, the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper, has died. He was 72.

Katz was killed on May 31 with six other people in a private jet crash in Bedford, Massachusetts, his son, Drew Katz, said in a statement. Lewis Katz and H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest won control of the Inquirer and its sister publication at a court-ordered auction four days earlier.

A native of Camden, New Jersey, Katz was increasingly involved with his philanthropic giving. Last month, Temple University announced it would name its medical school after Katz, who told the Inquirer that while his mother wanted him to be a doctor, he couldn’t stand the sight of blood.

He instead became a lawyer and businessman. He was chief executive officer of Kinney System Holding Corp., the largest operator of parking lots in the New York area, from 1990 until its sale in 1998 to Nashville, Tennessee-based Central Parking Corp. for $225 million.

He was former chairman of Interstate Outdoor Advertising Co., the Cherry Hill, New Jersey-based billboard company that Drew Katz took over in 1999. The firm began in 1984 “with prime outdoor advertising opportunities in the New Jersey, Philadelphia and New York markets,” according to its website, and in 2000 acquired R.C. Maxwell Co., one of the earliest U.S. billboard companies.