Duchess of Carnegie, 96, refuses to leave home

Known as the Duchess of Carnegie, the 96-year-old came home a few days ago to find an eviction notice on her door.

"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."

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.

Sherman pays $650 a month for her studio, a drool-inducing space basked in natural light with floor-to-ceiling windows. An enormous skylight hangs over bold, black-and-white tiled floors; a cast-iron circular staircase leads to a loft stuffed with props.

Since last year when Carnegie Hall announced its facelift, 43 residents have lost their battle to stay, and one rent-controlled tenant has vacated, according to Hall spokeswoman Synneve Carlino. The push to renovate came from the Hall's chairman Sanford Weill who wants to expand the education classrooms for more than 115,000 music and art students.

Dressed in a purple zebra-cuffed shirt and black jumpsuit, Sherman ambles around her enormous studio with the sprightliness of a woman half her age. She holds up a photograph of herself with Salvador Dali, her aubergine-painted eyebrows animated as she tells stories about the famous faces who have dropped by over the years -- Andy Warhol, Henry Fonda, Eva Gabor, Tyrone Power, Carl Sandburg, Paul Newman.

she actually has a lot of rights by law. If they move her from her apartment, they have to provide her with an equivalent one in the same neighborhood. The rent controlled tenant who moved out may have accepted a payout to move in with a relative or into assisted living.

She doesn't want to move. I wonder what they are going to do next? Sounds like they might have to physically remove her from the property or she won't budge. Can they physically remove her from the property?

housing court will not look kindly on them. They're going to have to negotiate very nicely with her. There are whole buildings built around "holdouts" in NYC; people (older renters)who absolutely refused to budge.

The Hall's chairman "wants to expand the education classrooms"...

He wants to make more money. That's the gist of it. He wants to kick people out of their homes so he can make more money. :grr: