A group of artists fighting eviction from studios in two towers owned by Carnegie Hall in New York City have won a reprieve in their legal battle.

A New York judge issued an order Friday preventing eviction of 50 tenants of the towers until their case can be heard in court Sept. 17.

Tenants are fighting eviction from two towers rising above the Carnegie Hall building at 57th Avenue and Broadway in New York.
(Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press)

Carnegie Hall Corp. wants them out so it can renovate the space to house its education programs.

Marlon Brando and Leonard Bernstein once lived in the towers that rise above Carnegie Hall. Marilyn Monroe took acting lessons in one of the studios and Lucille Ball met there with her voice coach.  

In 1960, violinist Isaac Stern led a public campaign to save one of the towers from developers who wanted to tear it down.

The painters' studios have 10-metre ceilings and huge skylights that catch the northern light artists find ideal.

Rents range from several hundred to thousands of dollars, depending on whether they are rent-controlled.

Carnegie, the philanthropist who built Carnegie Hall, constructed the studios for artists, said tenant Ashtiana Sundeer, a painter and meditation teacher.

"Andrew Carnegie had a specific intention and that intention still has a value," she said. "We're Carnegie's children. We certainly have the right to be here."

Editta Sherman, 95, a portrait photographer who has shot the likes of Henry Fonda and Andy Warhol, has lived there for 58 years.

"I'm not moving out! I'm going to be the last one in this building!" she said, adding that she raised five children in the building.

Carnegie Hall says it has offered to find new accommodation for elderly tenants of rent-controlled space.

The space is needed to expand the hall's education programs, which benefit about 115,000 children, said executive and artistic director Clive Gillinson.

The tenants' attorney, Arlene Boop, said the tenants won't go without a fight.

The plan to gut the studios "is sort of like 'Let's bulldoze the Greek temple,'" she said.

With files from the Associated Press