Art collector who died in Trump Tower fire couldn’t sell home

NEW YORK — Todd Brassner, who died in a fire at Trump Tower on Saturday, loved fast cars, electric guitars, expensive watches and making long, erudite pronouncements about art and art history. He was an art dealer with health problems and a 2015 bankruptcy that listed his apartment as the location of more than $3 million worth of artwork and other collectibles, including a 1975 portrait of Brassner painted by Andy Warhol.

Friends of Brassner said he had been trying to move since the election of President Donald Trump in 2016, which brought increased security and activity to the building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, but he could not sell his 50th-floor apartment, which he estimated to be worth $2.5 million in 2015.

“It haunts me,” said Stephen Dwire, 67, a musician and music producer who had been friends with Brassner since they were 14-year-olds in Harrison, New York, in Westchester County. “He said, ‘This is getting untenable,’” Dwire said. “It was like living in an armed camp. But when people heard it was a Trump building, he couldn’t give it away.”

Brassner, 67, lived alone amid a collection of about 100 vintage electric guitars, 40 guitar amplifiers dating to the 1930s, 150 ukuleles and artwork by Robert Indiana, Mati Klarwein, Jack Kerouac and others.

Officials from the Fire Department declined to comment on the damage to Brassner’s extensive holdings. On Sunday, they had not determined the cause of the blaze that also injured four firefighters.

“We send our prayers and deepest condolences to Mr. Brassner’s family and loved ones,” a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization said on Sunday.

For Brassner, the building was a prestigious address for dealing art, and his early years there echoed his successes in the nexus of the art and music worlds.

“He led a very out-there life,” said Jodi Stuart, who was Mr. Brassner’s first girlfriend and had been in and out of his life since. “Out there in sports cars, out there in rock ’n’ roll, playing Hendrix on guitar, bigger than life.”