Habitat Magazine
The recent outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease on the Upper East Side may have revealed an effective new tool for getting building owners to comply with rules on cooling-tower inspections.
Public shaming.
When the outbreak began in early July, the city ordered the immediate testing of 183 cooling towers in a swath of the Upper East Side from Central Park to the East River — and then released the initial test results publicly on July 10. At that time, Gothamist reports, 74% of the tested buildings were in compliance with new rules that require building owners to test the water in the towers for Legionella bacteria every 31 days instead of every 90 days. The stricter rule was the result of a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in central Harlem in the summer of 2025.
In the two weeks after the city published the initial test results on the Upper East Side, the rate of compliance jumped to 92%, according to the health department. Among the cooling towers that actually tested positive for Legionella bacteria in the city’s initial round of testing, 97% are now in compliance with the new law.
It appears that public shaming had an impact — at least in the immediate neighborhood.
Citywide, the story is a bit different. About 80% of all cooling towers across the city are now in compliance — a minor uptick from about 77% at the time the initial Upper East Side test results were released July 10, according to the city health department.
In 2025, before the stricter inspection rules went into effect, the city issued more than $600,000 in fines for violations of cooling tower maintenance and testing laws. The city has conducted more than 630 cooling tower inspections since the new testing law took effect on May 8 and issued more than 700 violations for lack of compliance with the law and other issues, the health department said.
Rigorous inspections and reporting are critical because Legionella bacteria, which can cause a severe form of pneumonia, thrives in the warm water found in rooftop cooling towers in summer months. If released into the air, the bacteria can be inhaled by passersby or residents, triggering Legionnaires’ disease. So far, seven people have died from the outbreak on the Upper East Side.
Spokesman William Fowler said the health department is still trying to figure out how to increase compliance with the latest Legionella testing requirements. In addition to issuing summonses, he said efforts to do so have so far included sending email reminders and educating cooling tower operators, including co-op and condo boards. Meanwhile, the city health department is still addressing a staffing shortage that has hampered the pace of cooling tower inspections in recent years.
City Council Speaker Julie Menin and Health Committee Chair Lynn Schulman have said they want the health department to take more aggressive action as soon as test results are found to be missing from city records, and to provide more transparency around which buildings have been fined for not complying with the new law.
Based on those statements, the merits of public shaming will likely be part of the discussion in September when the city council holds an oversight hearing on the health department’s handling of this summer’s Legionnaires’ disease outbreak on the Upper East Side.