Duchess Of Carnegie Refuses To Leave Home
By Wyatt Earp | December 30, 2008
She must have been something before electricity.
Well, I guess she’s not the Duchess of Dale Carnegie. This broad is definitely not winning friends or influencing people.
Editta Sherman has celebrated more than half a century’s worth of new years in her palatial studio apartment above New York’s Carnegie Hall. But it’s unlikely the celebrated portrait photographer will be raising her glass there next year.
Known as the Duchess of Carnegie, the 96-year-old came home a few days ago to find an eviction notice on her door.
Ouch! That’s gotta hurt!
“I thought, oh, what is this? Are you kidding me that they are really going to send a woman like me down the street just like that? Have me scurry away without a fight,” she said, delivering a whooping cackle, punctuated with a grandmother’s tsk tsk.
“Oh, no, that’s not what I am going to do. They’ll have to take me out of here with their bare hands.”
So, who else is picturing some hired goons throwing Ms. Sherman out the window? What? I’m just sayin’.
The city of New York wants to renovate the space above Carnegie Hall, where Marlon Brando once lived and where Sherman and five other renters, including iconic New York Times’ photographer Bill Cunningham, have enjoyed rent-stabilized bliss since Frank Sinatra cut his first demo. (H/T – CNN)
This may go against my better judgment – and my snarkasm gene – but I say let the old broad stay. How long are we really looking at? She’s 96 years old. Tell Bloomberg to wait a few years, and renovate the space when the spinster kicks.
That is truly what Jesus would do. And by that, I mean Jesus Jimenez, the local slum lord. Heh.
Topics: Evil = Funny | 7 Comments »
December 30th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
You and I would be in complete agreement but for the “rent-stabilized bliss” she’s enjoying. Sorry, but rent control is one of the true evils of the urban landscape. It rates right up there with hip-hop and rodent infestation (not necessarily in that order).
December 30th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
John D – Actually, most hip-hop artists are rodents!
December 30th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Oh the joys of socialism. Rent control or what ever it is called.
December 30th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
I have mixed views over this. I see the Marshall’s point about her age but it sounds to me like she could live a fair few years yet.
What does her lease say? If the legal contract she signed says she can be evicted, then she can be evicted provided due process is followed. She lives cheaply on her own (presumably) in a ” palatial” apartment subsidised by whom? The landlord? The City? She’s a celebrated portrait photographer? She should sell some more of her work and live in a smaller apartment.
Maybe that’s too hard but in this country (UK) people are loseing their homes simply because the value of them has dropped and mortgage companies are feeling insecure and are withdrawing the mortgage even though there is no evidence that the owner/purchasers will default. Why should she be treated any differently?
December 30th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Rick – Owning a home is a right! They wrote about rent control in the Constitution! Heh.
Alan – She shouldn’t be. Time to go, grandma!
December 31st, 2008 at 9:21 am
I think she is more attached to the memories in that apartment rather than the apartment. When I read this article I was kind of torn. On one hand, she’s in her mid 90s, and while in good health…she’s in her mid 90s. The emotional turmoil would be enough to kill her. On the other hand, they are offering housing in the same neighborhood and to pay the difference in the rent controlled price and the current price…for LIFE! It isn’t like she’d be paying more. There was one line in the story that grabbed my attention, though. She said she’d move for $10 million.
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:14 am
Too many of our historical landmarks are being sacrificed to the crass empires of fleeting business barbarians who wouldn’t recognize art if it bit them on the …
Lady Sherman and her to-die-for rent will fade all too quickly into legends of the city. Leave her to live out her years gracefully in the rooms that hold her heart in fond memory.