Health & Environment Active Updated Sep 18, 2026
The South Bronx Legionnaires' cluster
A Legionnaires' disease cluster in the Bronx's Melrose and Morrisania neighborhoods, New York City's second cluster this summer after the deadly Upper East Side outbreak, has killed one person and sickened five others. The fight is over whether the city's cooling-tower inspection and response system, already criticized after the Upper East Side and Harlem outbreaks, can contain a third cluster in as many months.
The story so far
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Sep 18, 2026 Latest
Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin announced a second death Thursday in the South Bronx Legionnaires' cluster and said every cooling tower that tested positive in initial screening has been disinfected, with confirmatory testing still underway to determine whether the bacteria found were alive. The Post counted 14 people sickened citing city data while ABC7 counted 13 confirmed cases, 11 of them hospitalized, and Health Department staff had spoken with 1,700 community members in the past week.
Gothamist 
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Sep 16, 2026
Health officials took questions at a Tuesday night town hall at Metropolitan College in the Bronx, where Borough President Vanessa Gibson called for cooling towers to be inspected more often than the current annual requirement. Officials said 74% of buildings in the outbreak's two ZIP codes met the monthly testing rule, compared with 82% citywide.
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Sep 15, 2026
The city's Health Department found Legionella at 10 of 24 tested South Bronx cooling towers, including one at Yankee Stadium, in a cluster that grew to 11 positive cases with one death and three hospitalized as of Monday night. Two of the flagged towers, at 820 Concourse Village West and 1265 Franklin Ave., had not kept up the city's required 31-day testing, and the Yankees said their most recent Aug. 20 test was negative and no cases have been linked to the stadium.
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Sep 14, 2026
The city ordered 10 South Bronx cooling towers drained, cleaned and disinfected by Monday after preliminary PCR tests found Legionella bacteria, including towers at Yankee Stadium and Lincoln Hospital, as the cluster grew to nine confirmed cases with three hospitalized. The Yankees said their most recent monthly test on Aug. 20 came back negative for Legionella, and health officials said two of the 10 flagged towers had not submitted the testing required every 31 days since May.
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Sep 12, 2026
Gothamist found five buildings among the outbreak area's cooling towers had no monthly Legionella test on record despite a citywide law requiring monthly testing since May 8, while Healthbeat counted two of 27 registered towers with no sample submitted. Council Member Justin Sanchez called the outbreak alarming given the ZIP codes' otherwise high compliance rate, and Health Commissioner Alister Martin said any tower that tests positive will be directed to undergo full cleaning and disinfection immediately.
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Sep 11, 2026
New York City's Health Department confirmed a Legionnaires' disease cluster in ZIP codes 10451 and 10456 covering Melrose and Morrisania, killing one person and sickening five others, with results on additional possible cases still pending. Every cooling tower in the area was sampled, with PCR test results due within 24 to 48 hours.
Gothamist
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Bronx Times 
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