Legionnaires' Outbreak: NYC Identifies Certain Upper East Side Buildings
Health officials will publish addresses of buildings with positive initial tests as they clean cooling towers and track a cluster that has reached 36 cases, including 22 hospitalizations.
- New York City health officials identified multiple "buildings of interest" on Thursday in an Upper East Side Legionnaires' disease investigation centered in Carnegie Hill, Yorkville, and Lenox Hill neighborhoods.
- Legionnaires' disease, a pneumonia caused by Legionella bacteria thriving in warm water, spreads through cooling tower water vapor. City officials are testing all tower systems in affected neighborhoods to locate the source.
- As of Wednesday, health officials confirmed 36 cases with 22 hospitalizations. Officials say a dozen buildings returned positive PCR test results, including one at 1511 Third Avenue.
- Mayor Zohran Mamdani pledged the "unprecedented step" of releasing addresses of all buildings with positive cooling tower test results. The Health Department ordered immediate cleaning and disinfection based on screening results.
- Officials warn that additional cases may emerge due to the disease's incubation period. This outbreak follows a 2025 Harlem cluster that sickened more than 100 people and killed seven.
22 Articles
22 Articles
Water-cooling towers at 31 Upper East Side sites test positive for Legionella bacteria
A file photo of the Upper East Side of Manhattan, with a view of the iconic Guggenheim Museum. Owners of 19 of those buildings have already completed the process of cleaning and disinfecting the towers. [ more › ]
Bacteria Causing Legionnaires’ Disease Discovered in Guggenheim Cooling Tower
Legionella bacteria, which causes Legionnaires’ disease, has been found in the cooling tower of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The Art Newspaper reports that the bacteria was discovered during routine monthly testing earlier this week and that the institution quickly complied with the city’s remediation requirements. The museum has said that the tower is […]
There is also the Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Street among the buildings of the Upper East Side of Manhattan on the dock for nearly fifty cases of Legionellosis in one of the richest neighborhoods in New York. (ANSA)
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