The Upper East Side’s Legionnaires’ disease cluster has grown to 36 confirmed cases and 22 hospitalizations, with still no deaths reported, and for the first time a building whose cooling tower tested positive for the bacteria behind the outbreak has been named.
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The tower at 1511 Third Avenue (between 85th and 86th streets) came back positive for Legionella on an initial screening and was ordered to drain, clean, and disinfect, according to CBS New York, which obtained the notice sent to the building. Officials say it’s one of several buildings that received such a letter, and they’ve cautioned that more testing is still needed to pin down which tower — or towers — is actually making people sick. A positive screening flags a tower for immediate cleaning, but it doesn’t on its own confirm the source of the cluster.The count has climbed steadily since the first two cases surfaced on July 2 — to 10 by that Friday, 23 by Monday, and 36 as of Wednesday night. Officials expect the number to keep rising as testing widens, in part because symptoms can take two to 14 days to appear after exposure.
The monitored zone now spans ZIP codes 10028, 10128, and 10075, and the Health Department is asking anyone who has spent time on the east side of Central Park between 76th and 97th Streets since late June to watch for symptoms — fever, cough, chills, muscle aches, headaches, or shortness of breath — and to see a healthcare provider immediately if they appear. Anyone who needs help finding a provider can call 311 or (844) 692-4692.
Behind the scenes, the city is working through an unusually dense stretch of cooling towers — more than three times the number checked during last summer’s deadly Harlem outbreak. Roughly 160 towers are registered across the three ZIP codes, and crews had sampled about that many as of this week.
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Mayor Zohran Mamdani has also promised more transparency than in past outbreaks. His administration says it will publicly release the addresses of every building whose cooling tower tests positive on the initial screening, rather than waiting on slower confirmatory lab work — though it hasn’t said exactly when that full list will post, only that it will come as results roll in. The city is also now requiring buildings to fully remediate the moment a screening comes back positive, a faster standard than the one used in prior clusters, when owners could boost disinfectant levels and wait up to two weeks for culture results before a full cleaning was required.
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Officials continue to stress that everyday life in the neighborhood is safe. The cluster isn’t linked to any building’s plumbing, and it remains fine to drink tap water, shower, cook, and run air conditioners. Legionnaires’ spreads only when someone breathes in contaminated mist, never from person to person, and it’s treatable with antibiotics when caught early. Higher-risk groups include people 50 and older, smokers, and those with chronic lung disease or weakened immune systems.The latest official guidance is available from the NYC Health Department.
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