A Select Chronology of Contagious Disease in New York City

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New York City is struck by epidemic cholera for the first time. 3500 residents perish. Many point to the prevalence of sinful behavior, particularly among the immigrant poor, as the cause. 

The Croton Aqueduct is completed, delivering fresh drinking water to the residents of lower Manhattan. 

The work of London physician John Snow and European sanitarians point to water contaminated by human waste as a source of cholera. Americans increasingly connect disease with unsanitary environments rather than solely to immoral behavior.  

97 Orchard Street is built with a four-stall outdoor toilet or privy, and hydrant delivering Croton water in its outdoor rear yard.

The Metropolitan Board of Health is established. When cholera strikes for the third time, the Croton Aqueduct and the Board of Health help lessen the toll.

the First Tenement House Act passed in New York State. Requirements apply primarily to new construction, and “pre-law” tenements like 97 Orchard Street are mostly exempted.

German scientist Robert Koch publishes his discovery of the tuberculosis bacterium, proving that specific microorganisms (not moral failing, ethnicity or poverty) are the direct cause of contagious diseases. A year later, in 1883, Koch discovers the bacteria responsible for cholera.

103 Orchard Street is constructed as three separate Old-Law “dumbbell” tenements.

Herman Biggs and the Department of Health begin the first formal public health campaign in the country to fight tuberculosis in New York.

The influenza virus behind a developing global pandemic arrives in New York aboard the Bergensfjord, a Norwegian ship.

New York City records its first confirmed case of influenza.

New York City records its first death from influenza. 

New York’s Board of Health expands the sanitary code to make influenza and pneumonia reportable for first time.

City Health Commissioner Royal Copeland tells the New York Times that patients in “private houses or apartments…will be kept in strict quarantine…in boarding houses and tenement…promptly removed to city hospitals.” However, in practice, insufficient numbers of physicians and hospital beds made enforcement difficult.

New York health officials place at least 10,000 posters in subway and railway stations, elevated train platforms, streetcars, store windows, police precincts, hotels, and other public spaces conveying three different messages: instructing people to cover their coughs and sneezes, encouraging people not to spit, and urging New Yorkers to “Help to Prevent the Return of the ‘Flu’ and Pneumonia!”

New York health officials formally announce that an influenza epidemic had gripped the city. 

New York Department of Health officials enacted plans to divide the city into 150 emergency health districts, each assigned temporary health centers functioning as clinics as well as headquarters for nurses who provided home health care.

New cases and deaths from influenza decline to level consistent with seasonal flu.

Following the last cycle of the nearly two-year influenza pandemic, over 33,000 New Yorkers had died and at least 21,000 children had been orphaned. 

97 Orchard Street is effectively condemned for non-compliance with fire-proofing and safety alterations required by the Multiple Dwellings Act. 

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that between October 1980 and May 1981 five young men had been diagnosed with a rare lung infection called pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP). 

The New York Times breaks the story of the coming AIDS epidemic in July 1981 with a report titled “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals.” 

The CDC reports that in the prior thirty months, 26 cases of an unusual malignancy, Kaposi’s Sarcoma (KS), had been diagnosed in New York City and California. These men died of rare diseases enabled by a severely compromised immune system. The CDC reported that one apparent constant among these first reported cases was their sexual orientation –all were gay men. 

Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) is formed by community activists to provide services and education to those suffering from an illness many stigmatized as “Gay Cancer” and would soon be termed HIV/AIDS, while government action remains absent. 

The (CDC) uses the term AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) for the first time, describing it as a disease predictive of a defect in cell immunity. 

AIDS was reports in intravenous drug users, hemophiliacs and Haitians. Before adequate medical research proved otherwise, the high rates among Haitians lead many to believe that the disease originated in Haiti.

AIDS is reported among the female partners of men who had the disease, establishing a connection to heterosexual intercourse.

The CDC rules-out transmission by casual contact, food, water, air, or surfaces.

The National Cancer Institute announces they have found the cause of AIDS: the retrovirus HTLV-III.

ACT-UP (Aids Coalition to Unleash Power) is founded as a grassroots, direct action organization dedicated to ending the aids pandemic.

FDA approves the first antiretroviral drug, zidovudine (AZT), as treatment for HIV.