City health officials are advising all residents of an East Village apartment complex to take precautions after two residents contracted Legionnaires’ disease there within the last 11 months.
The advisory went out Tuesday in a Zoom call arranged by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) in which the agency revealed that two tenants in one of the five buildings in the Haven Plaza complex had been diagnosed with the potentially deadly disease within the last year — one in June and the other early this month.
The Legionella bacteria is transmitted via inhalation of water vapor, causing pneumonia-like symptoms that can be treated if caught in time. During the call, health officials advised residents to temporarily stop taking showers and to fill up bathtubs slowly to minimize exposure to potentially dangerous vapor. Meanwhile, tests of the water in the complex are underway, though results have yet to be announced.
The first test is focused on the water system at One Haven Plaza, the building where both tenants live.
“There are a lot of older people in these buildings, so it’s super dangerous,” Dana Cruz, president of the Haven Plaza tenant association, told THE CITY Thursday.
Late Thursday, Rich Padilla, 54, whose wife lives in the building where the Legionnaires’ cases took place, said, “This is very scary right now. Hopefully not too many people get sick.”
Another resident who declined to give her name, adopted a stoic response to the health department’s advisory, telling THE CITY, “I will say one thing. I’m not doing anything they say. You gotta die sometime, so I’m taking my showers and doing everything.”
Cruz said she knew nothing of the June case until last week when DOHMH notified Wavecrest Management, the firm managing the building for the operator, Catholic Homes, shortly after discovering the second case. Catholic Homes is a partner of Catholic Charities and the Archdiocese of New York.
Cruz said the tenant in the second case was over 65 and had to be hospitalized in an intensive care unit. That tenant rarely leaves her apartment so it’s unlikely she contracted the disease outside her building, Cruz said.
In recent years Legionnaires’ outbreaks have taken place at several New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) developments, including one in 2024 at the Langston Hughes Houses in Brooklyn that resulted in a fatality.
Doctors who diagnose a case of Legionnaires’ are required to report it to the city health department, and Cruz said it appears health officials did not notify building managers until after the second reported case.