Daily News | Karin Takiff, banker, city administrator, arts advocate, and prize-winning dog owner, has died at 73
Karin Takiff, 73, of Philadelphia, retired senior vice president of health-care banking at PNC Financial Services, former administrative director of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s domestic abuse unit, one-time fund-raising whiz for the Pennsylvania Ballet, and prizewinning dog owner, died Wednesday, June 8, of metastatic breast cancer at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
By all accounts, Ms. Takiff treated her adult Westies like the children she never had. Sunnie was one of her favorites, and she gave “the kids” the run of the house, kept them in pairs so one wouldn’t be lonely, and traveled to all their shows and exhibitions. Diane Dalto Woosnam, a longtime friend and arts administrator, said in a tribute that Ms. Takiff was “a quiet presence with enormous influence in the arts institutions she supported. Her years as an administrator at the Pennsylvania Ballet were some of the organization’s most rocky, and Karin led the fund-raising efforts that allowed the ballet to organize and prosper.”
“She was engaged,” said her brother, Jonathan, a former staff writer at The Inquirer and Daily News. “We were raised to always be looking out for people.”