Information regarding the five ZIP codes impacted by Legionnaires' disease outbreak in New York City
In the heart of New York City, a decline in cooling tower inspections has raised concerns, particularly in five identified ZIP codes where people are most at risk. These areas, located in northern Manhattan, including parts of Harlem and Washington Heights, have seen a significant drop in inspections since 2021.
The health department has identified these ZIP codes - 10027, 10030, 10035, 10037, and 10039 - as areas of concern, following a Legionella outbreak in 2021. In that year, a record number of towers, exactly 100, were inspected in these affected ZIP codes. However, by 2025, the number of inspections had dropped to only a quarter of that number.
The city is set to inspect less than half of the towers it did at the start of Mayor Eric Adams' administration. This decline in news coverage is a cause for worry, as Legionella bacteria can form in cooling towers and spread through the air, potentially infecting people whether they live in a building or not.
Nearly a decade of publicly available inspection and violation data from the five ZIP codes was analysed, revealing that the number of inspections in these areas dropped more precipitously than citywide. The number of cooling towers in the affected ZIP codes was not provided, but it is a fraction of the 4,929 towers spread across all of New York City, with Manhattan having the most, with 3,635.
The health department did not respond to questions about whether increased testing could have helped prevent the current outbreak. Health Commissioner Michelle Morse is concerned about giving New Yorkers a false sense of security if they aren't near the affected buildings. The locations of these 11 buildings with active Legionella bacteria have not been released by officials.
By 2022, inspections were back to 4,443, but have dropped again since Adams entered office. The number of inspections citywide has dropped dramatically since then. In 2017, 5,095 inspections were conducted, but they plummeted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2015 city law allows the city to inspect cooling towers for compliance, but the current decline in news stories has sparked debates about the effectiveness of the legislation and the need for stricter enforcement to ensure the safety of New Yorkers.
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