Health Dept.: UES Co-op Building Has Legionella in Plumbing

Legionella bacteria has officially been detected in the plumbing system of an Upper East Side co-op, after NYC Health Department inspectors announced that they’d be investigating the building late last month.

The investigation was triggered after the Health Department said two residents were sickened Legionnaire’s disease in the past 12 months at The Cherokee—a four-building complex located between E. 78th St. and E. 79th St., as well as between York Ave. and Cherokee Place.

Officials also indicated that they’d be narrowing their testing protocol to the building’s plumbing system, which has now led to the newly announced discovery of lingering bacteria.

“The risk of getting sick from a building’s water system is very low, especially for healthy people, but those who are in high-risk groups are recommended to limit exposure to water mist while this work is underway,” a spokesperson for the Health Department told Our Town on Feb. 11.

Meanwhile, The Columbia Spectator reported that a large Harlem housing complex—known as 3333 Broadway—turned up signs of lingering Legionella earlier this month, after a probe began in early January.

Both probes follow a deadly outbreak of the disease that tore through Harlem last summer, which sickened 114 people and killed seven. The event led to the passage of a City Council bill putting more stringent testing requirements in place. It comes after Gothamist reported on a significant reduction in proactive Legionnaire’s probes between 2017 and 2025.

Legionnaire’s disease, which is caused by Legionella, causes flu-like symptoms. The mortality rate for any given outbreak sits between 5 and 15 percent, although not everybody who is exposed to Legionella necessarily ends up with Legionnaire’s. The disease is not contagious, and is instead contracted from exposure to infected water vapor.

A Health Department source says that management at the Cherokee Houses are working on contracting with an outside water management team, in order to help an in-house team remediate the presence of Legionella. Follow-up tests to ensure its continued elimination will then be conducted.

In the meantime, residents of the co-op are being advised to follow Health Department guidance on monitoring for Legionnaire’s symptoms, while the Health Dept. has contacted building management to conduct a follow-up meeting with said residents.

Essentially, this health guidance would advise anybody with flu-like symptoms at The Cherokee to seek medical care immediately.

A spokesperson for Cherokee House management did not return a request for comment as of press time.

The recent Harlem probe had the same triggering catalyst as the one at The Cherokee, namely the fact that two residents had tested positive for the illness at the ten-building campus in a twelve-month period.

This probe, which centered around cooling towers located on top of the complex’s buildings, drew a fair amount of consternation from some residents not long after it began. Specifically, a Jan. 5 informational meeting left a few people with a sour taste in their mouth, as the Columbia Spectator reported.

“We left the meeting without clear timelines, without dates, and without a clear understanding of how this investigation is moving forward,” a resident who identified himself as Tony B. said.

“In fact, the primary guidance that residents [received] from the [Health Department] was to take cold baths instead of showers for the foreseeable future without an end date,” he added.