(Photo: Josef Astor)

Apt. 1208
Editta Sherman, photographer.
Years in the Apartment: 58.
Editta Sherman is known as the Duchess of Carnegie Hall. The sprightly 95-year-old has lived in her twelfth-floor studio since 1949. She raised five children while working as a successful photographer of the cultural elite. Dramatic black-and-white examples from her collection of 2,500 portraits are displayed against the mirrored walls and bold checkered floor: Henry Fonda, Mary Martin, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. A cast-iron circular staircase leads to a loft filled with studio props. Photographer and fellow resident Bill Cunningham enlisted Sherman as his model and muse for his 1978 book Facades, which fuses fashion and architecture photography.