Todd Brassner died in a fire at Trump Tower on Saturday. According to The New York Times, he was an art collector who loved fast cars, electric guitars, expensive watches, art and history. Friends say he had been trying to move out since the 2016 election of Donald Trump, which brought increased security and activity to the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, but he was unable to sell his 50th-floor apartment, which he thought to be worth $2.5 million in 2015.
“It haunts me,” Stephen Dwire, 67, a musician and music producer who had been friends with Brassner since they were 14-year-olds in Harrison, N.Y., in Westchester County, told The New York Times. Brassner had told Dwire “This is getting untenable. It was like living in an armed camp.” But Dwire said when people found out the apartment was in a Trump building, Brassner couldn’t give it away.
Brassner, 67, lived alone. He owned about 100 vintage electric guitars, 40 guitar amplifiers dating back to the 1930s, 150 ukuleles and artwork by Robert Indiana, Mati Klarwein, Jack Kerouac and others. A 2015 bankruptcy listed Brassner’s apartment as the location of more than $3 million worth of artwork and other collectibles, including a 1975 portrait of Brassner himself, painted by Andy Warhol. It is unknown what caused the fire. Brassner’s apartment did not have sprinklers, which were not required.
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