Friend: Man who died in Trump Tower fire was respected art dealer

The Trump Tower resident who died in a fire at the high-rise Saturday was a respected art dealer and accomplished musician with poor health and financial woes, according to a childhood friend and court records.

Todd Brassner, 67, who lived on the 50th floor of President Donald Trump’s signature Manhattan building, died at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital Saturday night a short time after being transported there in critical condition, officials said.

Fire marshals were at the Fifth Avenue skyscraper Sunday investigating the cause of the four-alarm fire that broke out at about 5:35 p.m. Saturday. Six firefighters were treated for minor burns, smoke inhalation and other injuries that are not considered life-threatening.

“The cause of the fire is still under investigation,” FDNY spokesman James Long said Sunday.

The 58-floor building, located amid some of Manhattan’s most expensive real estate, includes Trump’s longtime primary residence. Trump, whose company completed construction on the building in 1983, still lives in a 10,000-square-foot apartment on the top three floors of the building when he returns to the city from Washington. The Trump Organization has offices in the tower, too. The president was in Washington at the time of the fire.

Brassner, a well-known dealer in the city’s art scene, is mentioned numerous times in pop-art icon Andy Warhol’s posthumous autobiography, “The Andy Warhol Diaries,” published in 1989. But longtime friend Betsy Broadman said Brassner was a brilliant figure in the art world in his own right.

According to court filings from his 2015 bankruptcy case, he struggled with “debilitating” health issues in recent years.

Brassner, who was single and had no children, was also a passionate musician who collected guitars and played in bands for much of his life, Broadman said. According to his bankruptcy filing, his assets included more than 100 vintage electric guitars from the 1950s and 1960s, 150 ukuleles made between 1900 and 1950, and banjos from the 1910s.

Brassner’s art collection included a portrait of novelist William S. Burroughs by “On the Road” author Jack Kerouac and pieces from artists Mati Klarewein and designer Josef Hoffman, as well as a portrait of Brassner created and signed by Warhol. His apartment was worth $2.5 million, according to the bankruptcy filing.

Brassner’s apartment was not required to have a sprinkler system, Long said. New York City code requires sprinklers in buildings constructed in 2008 or later, FDNY spokesman James Long said. Buildings built before 2008 are required to install sprinklers during major renovations.

The New York City Council considered proposals that would have required sprinklers in all residential properties in the 1990s, but the legislation stalled for years in the face of stiff opposition from the real estate industry — including Trump, then a powerful Manhattan developer — because of the cost. Real estate lobbyists complained sprinklers would have cost up to $4 per square foot to equip an entire building, and that sprinklers were prone to vandalism and malfunctions.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and ex-council speaker Peter F. Vallone pushed for a sprinkler law after seven people, including three firefighters, died in residential fires in December 1998.

The City Council approved legislation that mandated sprinklers in residential properties in 1999 that was signed despite misgivings by Giuliani, who believed the measure was not strong enough. The bill exempted new residential buildings with three or fewer units.