Problem: MSNBC takes a straight razor to David Axelrod, literally

MSNBC takes a straight razor to David Axelrod in the name of charity. One of the wonkiest ‘staches in American politics is no more as the high-profile Democratic consultant rid himself of his signature look on live television.

Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were able to help rustle up a million bucks for Axelrod’s CURE charity, an epilepsy research charity.

Write a one or two sentence summary.

Summary: MSNBC takes a straight razor to David Axelrod, literally


Problem: The New York Times

Ms. Sargent fought a different kind of development for as long as she could. The Carnegie Hall Corporation announced in 2007 that it would demolish the commercial and residential studios — which in their 1950s Bohemian heyday numbered as many as 170 — to create educational and rehearsal space for the hall. The $200 million project is to be completed in 2014.

The corporation has been leasing the space from the city, which took over Carnegie Hall and the towers in 1960, after the violinist Isaac Stern waged a campaign to save both from destruction. Several times since, residents had lobbied against eviction.

In New York, the plight of tenants forced to move from their rent-controlled apartments is an old song. But for free spirits like Ms. Sargent and Editta Sherman, a 98-year-old portrait photographer who moved out in July but had permission to visit during the day to catalog her photographs of celebrities, 881 Seventh Avenue has been more than an address.

It is — was — an identity. On Tuesday, both women must officially be gone.

“I’ve made my name here in Carnegie Hall,” Ms. Sherman said. “I’ve become more famous than ever living here. I don’t know how it’s going to work out now that I’m no longer living here.”

Ms. Sargent said she wanted to stay for a number of reasons. “It was home,” she said defiantly, “and it was a place where I could work without being interrupted, and in safety.”

But in the last several months, the dust and din of construction, along with the parade of workmen and security guards, left Ms. Sargent unsettled in her cocoon. In remission from breast cancer, Ms. Sargent found it physically and emotionally difficult to move from her two-story, balconied space to her new apartment in a glass skyscraper two blocks away.

“It took a lot of convincing for her not to live in this place with Bobcats and jackhammers,” her lawyer, Ed Cohn, said.

After three years of eviction proceedings, followed by financial settlements (which neither Ms. Sargent nor Ms. Sherman could discuss for legal reasons), the commercial renters and residents left the building.

Bill Cunningham, a New York Times photographer, moved out in May. The pianist Donald Shirley, 83, made an appropriately dramatic exit; at the end of June, Mr. Shirley’s grand piano was lifted by crane out of his 12th-floor apartment.

“Life decisions are never easy,” said Clive Gillinson, the executive and artistic director of Carnegie Hall. He said the space would “be used infinitely better,” for programs involving young artists from New York and around the world.

“To have a few people find somewhere else to live — and somewhere nice to live, since we were helping them — for the benefit of tens of thousands of people, well, that was a balance that clearly went toward looking after tens of thousands of people.”

The studios were designed by Henry Hardenburgh (the architect for the Dakota apartments and the Plaza Hotel), and the original intent, Mr. Gillinson said, was practical: to earn revenue for the struggling concert hall.

But Billy Lyons, 29, who worked for the acting teacher Wynn Handman in his studio there and became the unofficial building historian, said that Andrew Carnegie, the philanthropist, specifically built the spaces to foster creative collaboration.

“Each studio had perfect acoustics; each floor was for a different purpose,” Mr. Lyons said. “And once he put those artists in there, something special happened, something very important to American cultural history. That should be recognized and should have been preserved.”

Granted, such a vibrant artist colony, both Mr. Gillinson and Mr. Lyons admitted, has not existed for decades, with nonaffiliated businesses using some studios for offices.

But in Ms. Sargent’s and Ms. Sherman’s studios, at least, life had changed little since they moved there. The two women, who are opposites in eccentricity — Ms. Sargent protects her privacy as fiercely as Ms. Sherman invites attention — became closer during their eviction ordeal.

Recently, Ms. Sherman, who called Ms. Sargent’s battle against cancer “courageous,” had been cooking soup for her. Ms. Sargent, in cleaning out her closet, gave Ms. Sherman her red fox stole. “That made her look 50 years younger,” Ms. Sargent said.

Ms. Sherman’s new apartment on Central Park South does not have adequate space to store all her photographs, she says. Then again, she felt the same in 1949 about Suite 1208 when she, her husband and their five children moved into Carnegie Hall Towers. “It wasn’t quite what I wanted,” Ms. Sherman said. “It was very nice, but too small.”

Still, it suited her for 61 years. While Ms. Sherman held parties in the studio with skylights and photographed the famous (Henry Fonda and Christopher Plummer included), Ms. Sargent typically avoided the building’s social activities in order to work.

Adopted as an infant and raised with Quaker sensibility in Shaker Heights, Ohio, Ms. Sargent moved to New York and married and remarried. She had two children and published several books of poetry, plays and a novel, all featuring boldly sexual, feminist themes. She gave voice and poetry instruction in her studio.

“This,” she said, “has been my only home.”

That home was all but cleared at 2:30 p.m. Thursday, except for the out-of-tune upright player piano. Ms. Sargent sat down and began playing “St. Louis Blues,” and “I Can’t Get Started," which was recorded by Billie Holiday.

Construction workers stopped and watched, and the movers gathered, too, transfixed.

“Elizabeth got a beautiful round of applause,” Mr. Lyons said. “And off the piano went, out the door.”

An article on Saturday about the last tenants in the apartments above Carnegie Hall referred imprecisely to the song “I Can’t Get Started,” which one of the tenants played on her piano. While Billie Holiday recorded the song, as did others, the music was written by Vernon Duke and the lyrics by Ira Gershwin.

A version of this article appears in print on August 28, 2010, on Page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: In Apartments Above Carnegie Hall, A Coda for Longtime Residents. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

Write a one or two sentence summary.

Summary:
After decades of providing apartments to artists and others, the corporation that runs Carnegie Hall will begin converting the space for educational purposes.