Editta Sherman By Josef Birdman Astor

Inspired by his neighbors, some of whom had lived in the studios for decades, Astor began photographing and filming the great diversity of artists who lived and worked beside him. When, in 2007, everyone was served with eviction notices by the city of New York under the auspices of the Carnegie Hall Corporation, his footage took on new meaning as an emotional chronicle of the artists’ efforts to resist eviction, and, ultimately, their defeat.
     As with the East Village, The Bowery, The Chelsea Hotel, and a dozen other bastions of Manhattan artistic life, the sad story of contemporary New York continues….

Derek Peck: When did you move into the Carnegie Studios?

Josef Astor: It was 1985. Very few Carnegie Studios were rented after that time.

How did you find out about them, and how were you able to get one?
Like everyone in 1985, I was hanging out in the East Village at the Pyramid Club, and heard about an available studio above Carnegie Hall. Despite my nascent career being unable to manage the overhead, the advice of friends was: you must take it! Fortunately, I took their advice. I eventually asked that same question of all the tenants I met there: How did you get your Carnegie Studio? And it was always a version of the same response: “The place found me.”