One of the City of New York’s most famous museums tested positive for one of the America’s most infamous microorganisms — legionella pneumophila, the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease.
New York’s Guggenheim Museum was among nearly three dozen buildings on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to test positive, Fox News reported.
The bacteria is known to proliferate in water-cooling towers.
The Fifth Avenue museum and the owners of 18 other buildings in the area have already cleaned and disinfected theirs, the New York Post reported, citing the city’s Department of Health, which identified all of the infected properties by address on Friday.
The city said the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed museum will be required to clean and disinfect their cooling towers to get rid of the bacteria.
“The Guggenheim is among 19 of the buildings which have already finished disinfection, with the others expected to be completed by Saturday,” Fox News reported.
The museum said in a statement Saturday, “The city has confirmed that there is no additional action needed at this time, and this poses no risk to anyone inside the building.”
However, some 50 people “have been diagnosed” in connection with the Upper East Side outbreak and “fewer than 20 remain hospitalized,” according to the cable news outlet.
Legionnaires’ disease creates a sometimes-deadly form of pneumonia caused by the bacteria, which naturally occurs in water.
The illness got its name from a notorious — and at the time mysterious — 1976 outbreak in Philadelphia during an American Legion convention where dozens of veterans fell severely ill.
Panic ensued among families and friends of the affected convention goers as disease experts tried to figure out what was causing what was dubbed the “Philly killer.”
By the time the outbreak tapered off, nearly 200 had become ill and 29 had died.
The hotel’s cooling tower and air conditioning system turned out to be the culprits in that heavily publicized outbreak, which eventually led to the identification of the previously unknown bacteria.
Symptoms of the disease include fever, chills, and shortness of breath, and it can be treated with antibiotics if detected early.
Legionnaires’ disease does not spread from person to person.
The New York Post published a list of the addresses of infected buildings reported by the city.
“Anyone who lives, works or has visited the affected area since late June and develops flu-like symptoms should contact a health care provider immediately,” the city said in a news release.
The Guggenheim opened in 1959. It reportedly averages 1,100 daily visitors but was not ordered to shut down at any point, the health department said.
The museum told the Post on Saturday that it took immediate remediation steps after it learned of the presence of the bacteria.
Breitbart News contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
