UN-SPRINK-ABLE!
None at tower - & Trump lobbied to keep it that way
Donald Trump pushed to block mandated fire sprinklers in high-rise city apartments in the late 1990s — including at Trump Tower, where a 67-yearold man died Saturday in a blaze — because the billionaire said they would have cost too much.
Then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the City Council were weighing requiring the systems after seven people, including three FDNY firefighters, died in two 1998 fires at buildings that either had no sprinklers or nonfunctioning ones.
The move of retrofitting existing residential buildings was estimated to cost $4 per square foot at the time, a price Trump deemed too expensive, so he lobbied to kill the plan.
Trump donated $5,000 to thenCity Council Speaker Peter Vallone’s campaign and phoned the lawmaker as well as about a dozen other council members, according to reports at the time.
A law mandating sprinklers in future residential buildings with four or more units passed in 1999 — but Trump prevailed by convincing the council not to make the legislation retroactive, meaning an exclusion for his Trump Tower and then-underconstruction Trump World Tower in Midtown East.
Trump nonetheless pledged to spend $3 million to outfit Trump World Tower with the equipment, telling The New York Times in 1999 that he had a change of heart because “people feel safer with sprinklers.”
The 58-story Trump Tower, built in 1983, would have likely cost far more to retrofit with sprinklers — and never got them.
Mayor de Blasio’s office is now reviewing the sprinkler law.
One Trump Tower resident was shocked to learn about the lack of sprinklers.
“Oh, my God!” said Claudia Ospina, 34, who rushed down 40 flights of stairs with her twin 22month-old daughters to escape Saturday’s fire and smoke.
“A building like this, you pay a lot of money for administration, for maintenance, for security, and if you don’t have the basic things, it’s terrible,” she said.
Art dealer and Andy Warhol pal Todd Brassner died in the fire, which also injured four Bravest. Brassner, who lived off an inheritance, had fallen on hard times in recent years and had become a reclusive hoarder, friends said.
The cause of the fire, which began in Brassner’s apartment at around 5:20 p.m., is still under investigation, although sources said probers are leaning toward it being an electrical blaze.
The building is up to code and no violations were noticed, fire officials said. Still, Trump Tower residents say they were not given clear directions during the fire, and many reported trekking down smoke-filled stairwells.
In a statement, the Trump Organization said it worked with the FDNY “to keep residents informed.” The company would not say whether it plans to install sprinklers in the building.