A second man, a 59-year-old visitor to the dead man's apartment, was taken to Kings County Hospital with smoke inhalation. That man was believed to be intoxicated at the time of the fire.
The cause of the fire was under investigation and initially labeled suspicious by firefighters.
The second-floor apartment, where the fire is believed to have started, appears to have been illegally divided into four rooms. The building's narrow hallways also made it difficult for firefighters to fight the flames as they spread to the upper levels.
The building has a history of violations, the most recent in April of this year.
