Politician, Businessman, Philanthropist, Handsome, witty, born to wealth, the pipe-smoking Mr. Burden was a prominent figure in the life of the city for a generation. And while many knew him over the years from society and gossip columns, Mr. Burden was a man of accomplishment. In business, he founded and expanded Commodore Media, a New York City company that owns and operates 20 radio stations in Westchester County, N.Y.; Fairfield and Norwalk, Conn.; Huntington, W.Va.; Stuart, Fla., and Allentown, Pa. He was also the managing partner of William A. M. Burden & Company, a family investment partnership, and a director of the Reliance Insurance Companies. In philanthropy, he was a major benefactor of the New York Public Library, the Morgan Library and the New York City Ballet, as well as the Burden Center for the Aging in Yorkville, which he established and helped finance. He also supported the National Crime Prevention Council, the Brookdale Center on Aging, Wellesley College and Survivors of Domestic Abuse. He was a collector of masterly drawings, including works by Sargent, Picasso and Matisse. The collection of first editions of 20th-century American authors, like Fitzgerald, Faulkner and Hemingway, that he assembled in the last 17 years was regarded as one of the finest in the world. As a political figure in the Kennedy mold during three terms on the City Council, he served as chairman of the committee on health, fought to protect children from lead-based paint poisoning, sought to better the health and housing of the elderly, advocated the establishment of standards for prisoners' rights and introduced one of the first gay rights bills in the country. Like some of his other legislation, it did not pass, but many of his proposals did became law, in whole or part. Mr. Burden's career in public office, which began with his election to the Council in 1969 with 81 percent of the vote, ended in 1978. First he gave up his seat in an unsuccessful effort to win the nomination for President of the City Council. Then he lost to Bella S. Abzug when the State Supreme Court overturned his narrow victory in a Democratic county committee election for nomination to fill the Congressional seat vacated by Edward I. Koch when he was elected Mayor. In 1969, besides winning election to the City Council, Mr. Burden became the principal owner of The Village Voice, which was then the country's largest weekly newspaper. In 1975, he merged The Voice with the New York Magazine Company and a year later he sold his controlling interest to Rupert Murdoch. In 1980, after considering other public ventures, he became interested in radio and founded Commodore Media with a single station. At Harvard, he majored in English, wrote his senior thesis on Henry Miller, narrowly missed failing French and nevertheless graduated cum laude with a bachelor of arts degree in 1963. While Mr. Burden was attending Columbia University Law School studying for the bachelor of laws degree he received in 1966, the couple were giving spectacular parties in their apartment at the Dakota. Among the guests were Truman Capote, Andy Warhol, Norman Mailer, George Plimpton, Larry Rivers, Robert and Ethel Kennedy, Joan and Edward M. Kennedy, and, once, Prince Philip of Britain. But by 1966, they had begun to turn away from frivolity. Mr. Burden, having passed the bar examination, went to work for Robert Kennedy, serving as his liaison with the Puerto Rican community in East Harlem and helping to establish the Bedford-Stuyvesant Development Project. In spring 1968, when Senator Kennedy was assassinated, Mr. Burden became one of the founders of the New Democratic Coalition, opposed to the old Tammany Hall politics of their party and bent on reform. Mr. Burden set his sights on a City Council seat and began a Robert Kennedy-style race, campaigning 18 hours a day in shirtsleeves, looking for votes on foot and from the back of a Paris bus borrowed from one of his favorite restaurants, Lutece. On Dec. 31, 1969, he was sworn into office. Tradition called for a fee of 11 cents to be paid to the clerk who administered the oath. Mr. Carter reached into his pocket. He took out a dime and a nickel.