#304: Vaults: Astor Piazzolla

New York City has more than doubled the number of cooling tower inspectors on its payroll since last summer’s deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Central Harlem, according to new staffing levels announced by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Rooftop cooling towers function as part of a structure’s air conditioning system, but can spread deadly Legionella bacteria if they are not maintained properly. In August last year, health officials traced the source of the outbreak to two cooling towers, one on Harlem Hospital and another on a city-run health lab on the same block.

The health department will also begin enforcing more frequent testing of cooling towers for Legionella bacteria. A law passed by the City Council in October requires building owners to now test the water in their systems every 31 days, up from once every three months under previous requirements.

“As the summer approaches, we are working collaboratively to ensure that the city is utilizing every tool in the toolbox to monitor for this bacteria and help keep our residents safe,” Yume Kitasei, the commissioner for the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, said in a joint statement with the health department.

This new regulation, which took effect Friday, comes nine months after the Central Harlem outbreak sickened 118, hospitalized 92 and killed seven people.

City Councilmember Lynn Schulman, who chairs the health committee, said the Council will closely monitor whether the health department enforces the new law and pre-existing regulations around cooling towers.

“Legionnaire's disease is not a one-size-fits all problem,” she said. “Even with the stringent regulations that the NYC Council has passed over the years, there is no guarantee that an outbreak won't occur.”

A Gothamist analysis of city data last year found that the health department inspected a nearly record-low number of cooling towers in the lead-up to last summer’s outbreak.

At the time, a spokesperson for the agency attributed the drop in inspections to short staffing resulting from budget cuts. The total number of inspectors stood at just 24, down from 37 in 2022.

The health department hired six new cooling tower inspectors in the immediate aftermath of last year’s outbreak. It announced on Friday that the team has expanded to 54.

The city’s preliminary budget for 2027 allocates $13 million in additional funding for the additional staff. The health department said the money would also go to establishing a community outreach team in the event of another outbreak.

As the outbreak spread through Central Harlem last year, the health department said it collected eight samples of the bacteria from infected patients. Those matched the genetic material taken from two cooling towers located atop city-owned buildings.

The first was a construction site for a public health lab. The site was being managed by the construction company Skanska. Health officials said in August that the company had failed to register the tower with the city and conduct any required testing and monitoring of the cooling tower.

The second was located atop Harlem Hospital. A Gothamist investigation found that hospital staff failed to conduct weekly rapid testing required by its cooling tower management plan in the months leading up to the outbreak.

Cooling towers can be breeding grounds for dangerous Legionella bacteria.

Water is often circulated through pipes in larger buildings to absorb heat. That warmed water is then pumped into cooling tower basins on the roof, where it is evaporated by big fans.

But if the water is not regularly tested and disinfected, Legionella can not only thrive, it can be blown out in vapor and inhaled by passersby. The bacteria can cause a type of pneumonia. Older adults and immunocompromised individuals are especially susceptible. But even healthy people can suffer long-lasting effects from the disease.

April McIver, the executive director of the Plumbing Foundation, an advocacy group for water and gas professionals, said that while more testing is needed to prevent deadly outbreaks, the city should also broaden its efforts beyond cooling towers.

In January, the health department advised residents in a Harlem housing complex to use buckets and hoses to bathe after two residents contracted Legionnaires from the buildings’ internal water system.

McIver said plumbing systems must also be more strictly regulated.

“Any expert will say that this is the only way to better protect New Yorkers, and until that happens, we can expect to see another tragedy related to this dangerous disease,” she said.

A large piece of debris fell from the ceiling of a tunnel on the busy Trans-Manhattan Expressway Thursday morning, narrowly missing passing drivers in a harrowing caught-on-camera episode.

City Department of Environmental Protection worker John Toledo said he was on his way home from work at about 6 a.m. when a large piece of what he thought was concrete fell in front of his car just east of the George Washington Bridge. He said he had no time to stop, and plowed into the debris, violently shaking his car and blowing out one tire on impact. A Port Authority spokesperson said officials believe the material was actually dust and light material.

Toledo, 61, recorded the incident on his dashcam and shared the footage on Reddit.

He said he’s lucky to be alive.

"If I would have been one or two more seconds further forward, instead of that piece of concrete hitting the front of the car, it could have come through the windshield, and I wouldn't be speaking to you,” Toledo said.

Officials from the state transportation department said the section of roadway is under the jurisdiction of the Port Authority, which owns the bridge. The tunnel runs beneath the Bridge Apartments complex in Washington Heights.

“The material appears to consist primarily of dust and light material from above,” Port Authority spokesperson Seth Stein wrote in a statement. “Out of an abundance of caution, the Port Authority will conduct additional overnight inspections of the ceiling panels in this section of roadway, including lane closures to allow for a comprehensive examination and any necessary immediate mitigation measures.”

The congested, busy section of expressway where the debris fell connects the George Washington Bridge with the Cross Bronx Expressway.

Toledo said he’s not looking for a huge payout, just for his car repairs to be covered. He said more needs to be done to prevent similar incidents.

“For the sake of anybody else driving that road in the future there should be some concerted effort by those responsible for that structure to examine it, to inspect it, and to maintain it so that something like that does not happen again to anyone,” he said.

This story's headline has been updated to accurately reflect how officials describe the material.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Friday ordered an investigation into why Bellevue Hospital discharged a man who, about five hours later, allegedly shoved a 76-year-old he apparently did not know down a Chelsea subway staircase, killing him.

The mayor directed NYC Health and Hospitals, which runs Bellevue, to conduct a “root cause analysis” of its psychiatric evaluation and discharge protocols. He also asked the state Department of Health to launch its own review, and the agency agreed to send officials on-site immediately.

"New Yorkers deserve answers," Mamdani said in a statement. "I've directed NYC Health + Hospitals to conduct both an immediate investigation on what steps should have been taken to prevent this tragedy and a comprehensive review of their psychiatric evaluation and discharge protocols."

Christopher Miller, a spokesperson for NYC Health and Hospitals, said in a statement that the hospital welcomes the review.

“We expect that it will find our care was appropriate,” he said. “NYC Health and Hospitals/Bellevue is justly nationally recognized for its services for complex patients and all New Yorkers without exception.”

The announcement of an investigation marks an early test for Mamdani, who campaigned on overhauling the city's public safety and mental health care systems.

Police say Rhamell Burke, 32, ran up behind Ross Falzone at the West 18th Street and Seventh Avenue subway station around 9:30 p.m. Thursday and pushed him down the stairs. Falzone, who lived alone on the Upper West Side, suffered a fractured spine and a traumatic brain injury, authorities said. He was taken to Bellevue in critical condition and died several hours later.

Burke had been brought to Bellevue’s psychiatric hospital earlier that same afternoon. According to police, officers took him into custody around 3:30 p.m. Thursday after he acted erratically outside the NYPD's 17th Precinct stationhouse near East 51st Street and Third Avenue, at one point grabbing a stick from a garbage can and holding it at his side as officers told him to drop it.

Officers took him to Bellevue's emergency room for a psychiatric evaluation. He was discharged about an hour later, around 4:30 p.m., according to the mayor's office and police.

Burke was arrested Friday afternoon on the uptown C and E platform at Penn Station by two NYPD detectives who had his picture on their phones, officials said. Later Friday evening, the NYPD said Burke had been charged with murder. Attorney information for Burke was not immediately available.

Mamdani said that state health officials will remain on-site at Bellevue throughout the investigation and work with hospital leadership on any corrective actions.

This story has been updated with comment from NYC Health and Hospitals.