Met Museum Elects Trustee as Chairman

A Met trustee since 2001, Mr. Brodsky, 66, has served on important committees, including those for Finance and Buildings. He is also a trustee of New York City Ballet and New York University.

The Met chairmanship is one of the most prestigious positions in New York’s cultural firmament, requiring someone who is politically deft, an adept fund-raiser and well liked and respected by the rest of the board. That description seemed to fit Mr. Brodsky.

The Met’s director, Thomas P. Campbell, described him as a “good listener, someone who really takes the time to consider everybody’s opinions, but at the same time has a clear sense of purpose and direction.”

Mr. Houghton said that Mr. Brodsky got “along well with everybody.”

After Mr. Houghton announced his plan to retire in early March, the board — at 40 voting members, one of the largest of any American cultural institution — formed a succession committee led by three longtime trustees, Henry B. Schacht, S. Parker Gilbert and Annette de la Renta. The committee spoke to a number of people — the Met would say only that that group included Mr. Campbell — and made its recommendation to the full board at its meeting on Tuesday.

In an interview Mr. Brodsky said that his work on various board committees had given him a good view of how the museum was run and that he had enjoyed that learning process.

“The more you get involved with it, the better you know it, and the more you want to know about it,” he said of the museum.

Mr. Brodsky, who is unassuming in conversation, said he did not have a deep knowledge of art history or a favorite piece in the museum’s collection, although he prefers modern art. His wife, Estrellita Brodsky, is an independent curator specializing in Latin American art who has endowed the post of Latin American curator at the Museum of Modern Art.

Mr. Brodsky is the managing director of the Brodsky Organization, a company he started with his father, Nathan Brodsky, in 1971. It currently owns and manages 6,200 apartments in 68 Manhattan buildings and has also developed a number of condominium and co-op buildings.

As a trustee of City Ballet, Mr. Brodsky played a significant role in rallying support among Lincoln Center’s constituent organizations for the renovation of its campus, one of the biggest construction projects undertaken by a cultural institution in recent years. During the planning process, which was sometimes contentious, he said he learned that he enjoyed “listening to people and hearing them out and being able to help people come to a consensus.”

Mr. Brodsky is on the city’s Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission, a group that works closely with the cultural affairs commissioner, Kate D. Levin, and appears to have a friendly, if not close, relationship with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg — an asset in his new role, given that the city owns the Met’s building and provides roughly 10 percent of its operating budget. Mr. Brodsky served on the city’s 2012 Olympic bid committee, which also endorsed the mayor’s proposal for a Jets stadium on the West Side, a plan that ultimately failed.

Speaking about why he became involved in the city’s cultural institutions, Mr. Brodsky expressed a view strikingly similar to one often voiced by Mr. Bloomberg, describing them as an important component of the quality of life here, as well as a driver of tourism.

Speaking of Mr. Brodsky’s influence on the New York cultural scene, Ms. Levin said, “He has a larger footprint than people recognize, in part because he’s such a modest, thoughtful guy.”

His appointment means that real estate developers will soon be chairmen of three of New York’s major museums. Jerry I. Speyer, the chairman of MoMA, is also the chairman of Tishman Speyer; William L. Mack, at the Guggenheim Museum, is a founder and managing partner of Apollo Real Estate Advisors.

Asked if he saw any meaning in the trend, Mr. Brodsky said that real estate people were “very concerned about the viability of the city,” which cultural activity contributes to, “so there’s a logical reason for real estate people to be involved.”