UES Legionnaires’ Outbreak is Over, With Seven Dead
No new cases of the disease have been reported since July 17, although the outbreak continued to claim lives as of July 30, with five people still hospitalized. A total of 92 people were infected overall.
| 31 Jul 2026 | 05:41
Cooling towers at the addresses pictured above have tested culture positive for Legionella, meaning that live bacteria were discovered present at the time of the test. (
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A outbreak of Legionnaires’ that tore through the Upper East Side was declared officially over on July 31, meaning that in seven deaths and nearly 100 infections. (
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The Metropolitan Museum (above) tested positive for the disease during the outbreak, as did the Guggenheim Museum. (
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A Legionnaires’ outbreak that wreaked havoc on the Upper East Side has been declared functionally over by the NYC Health Department as of July 31, after infecting nearly 100 people and killing seven.
No new cases have been diagnosed since July 17, although the latest death connected to the outbreak was announced on July 30. Five people still remain hospitalized after contracting the disease earlier.
“The Upper East Side Legionnaires’ disease cluster exposure has ended. No new symptoms of Legionnaires’ related to this cluster have been reported in two weeks, confirming the exposure source was eliminated early,” the NYC Health Department announced in a social media post.
A total of 92 cases connected to the outbreak—located in the Carnegie Hill and Yorkville neighborhoods—were reported by the Health Department as of Thursday, July 30, up from 82 cases on July 21. Sixty-seven patients having been discharged from the hospital. Thirteen cases resulted in no hospitalization.
A total of 183 cooling towers, spread across 160 buildings, had been tested for the disease-causing Legionella bacteria—59 of which received positive results for live bacteria, meaning that they posed an active threat to the public. A total of 106 towers tested “culture negative,” with remaining results pending.
All of these buildings have since reportedly taken steps to disinfect such towers, as they contain the sort of warm water that Legionella bacteria thrives in; this is done via the use of biocides such as chlorine.
”We mobilized more than 260 @nychealthy staff, tested every cooling tower in the affected area, and directed every building with an initial positive test to immediately clean and disinfect its cooling tower, before we ever confirmed live Legionella bacteria were present,” NYC Health Dept. Commissioner Dr. Alistair Martin wrote online, after the outbreak was declared over.
Legionnaires’ disease, a severe form of pneumonia that spreads via infected aerosols, can prove particularly deadly to people with severe lung disease or a history of smoking. It is not contagious.
An 88-year-old Air Force veteran named Robert Goldstein was one such victim of the latest outbreak, and his widow Ida is now prepping a lawsuit against an unspecified building owner over his death, as reported by Our Town. Her lawyer, Ronald Katter, says that she plans to allege that negligence when it came to monitoring for the disease caused her “severe physical and emotional trauma.”
At a press conference held on July 17, Ida Goldstein elaborated that her daily commutes to visit Robert Goldstein at the hospital had left her breathing in “the same lethal bacteria that was killing my husband.”
The outbreak also caused a political stir, with City Council Speaker Julie Menin charging Mayor Zohran Mamdani with not mounting a satisfying response to the disease. City Council Member Liz Krueger, who also represents the area, defended Mamdani’s approach.
A deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease also notably sickened 114 people in Harlem last summer, killing seven. Reporting in Gothamist subsequently found that seven of the ten buildings traced to the outbreak had not been tested for over a year, with the New York City Council then passing a bill intended to strengthen testing requirements for building owners last fall.
Yet a recent investigation by the same outlet found that the law, which only went into effect in May, did not seriously ramp up testing and tracing in time for the latest outbreak that tore through the Upper East Side.