Meet the new face of Old Squatting, the phenomenon in which New Yorkers of the elderly persuasion refuse to leave their awesome rent-controlled apartments because they are just too damn old. Editta Sherman is a 96-year-old artist. She has been living upstairs from Carnegie Hall for 59 years, since 1946, paying $530 a month in rent, which leaves her with just enough to keep her stocked in the amount of hair mousse and aubergine lipstick she requires. But Carnegie Hall is renovating. They’d like to turn Editta’s apartment into office or classroom space. Editta is like, yeah, sure I’ll leave. If you give me $10 million — mwhahahaa! Stalemate. We can’t say we blame her. Look at that place. If that were our apartment, we’d chain ourselves to the floor until the wrecking ball came through the window. You shall overcome, Editta!
Carnegie Haul [NYP]
