NYC NOW - Midday News: Harlem Legionnaires' Outbreak Slows, Police Hunt Brooklyn Jewelry Thieves, and Springsteen’s Born to Run Turns 50

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

New York City’s deadly Legionnaires’ outbreak in Harlem appears to be waning with no new fatalities reported since Friday. Meanwhile, police are searching for two men who posed as NYCHA workers and stole more than $200,000 in jewelry and cash from a Brooklyn woman. Plus, Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run marks its 50th anniversary, and Eileen Chapman of the Springsteen Archives at Monmouth University joins us to reflect on the album’s legacy.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Tuesday, August 26th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. New York City's deadly legionaire's outbreak in Harlem appears to be waning. NMIC's Caroline Lewis reports. The outbreak has killed six people since it first came to light last month, but no new deaths have been reported since Friday. The total case count ticked up by one. over the weekend to 113.

Seven people are currently in the hospital with the disease, a severe form of pneumonia. The city health department has tied the Legionnaires outbreak to Legionella bacteria growing in a water cooling tower. The bacteria can cause Legionnaires if it's inhaled. The city says 12 cooling towers in Central Harlem have tested positive for Legionella

and have already been disinfected. But the city is still working to confirm which one caused the outside. break. Separately, the city's health department says it's investigating an apartment complex in the Bronx where they say the bacteria are growing in its hot water supply. At least two people have tested positive. Police say they're looking for two men who pretended to be New York City Housing Authority employees and stole more than $200,000 in jewelry and cash from a woman in Brooklyn. NYPD officials say it happened around 8.45 in the morning on August 11th, two weeks ago,

at Nica, Cypress Hills housing complex in East New York. Police say the two impostors entered an apartment and threatened a 25-year-old woman at gunpoint. The woman accuses them of taking an expensive watch and other items. The NYPD says the thieves then ran away. Summer is unofficially coming to an end with mild attempts and low humidity. 74 and sunny now. Sunny and near 80 today and then tomorrow and Thursday sunshine in upper 70s with light wind. Stay tuned for more after the break.

NYC 50 years ago those iconic notes were unveiled to the world. The album Born to Run hit the shelves at record stores on August 25th, 1975. And Bruce Springsteen went from being a local Asbury Park, New Jersey favorite, to an international superstar. But if you're not from Jersey, have you ever wondered why Bruce resonates so much with Garden Staters or why Born to Run is such an important piece of art?

Well, here to help us understand is Eileen Chapman. She directs Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music at Monmouth University, but she's also an Asbury Park City Council member and a longtime resident of this city. Eileen, welcome to Morning Edition. Thank you, Michael. I'm happy to be here. Eileen, before we dive into Bruce, set the scene for us. What was Asbury Park like in the 1970s?

What was the Stone Pony? So in the 1970s, Asbury Park was one of your typical. Jersey Shore seaside communities. The boardwalk was filled with rides and concert venues, and the Stone Pony was, of course, located right across the street from the boardwalk. It was the place where everyone came to hear music, people from all over the globe. And, Eileen, who was Bruce Springsteen in the lead-up to this album? So Bruce Springsteen was very well known on the East Coast, you know, coming from Asbury Park and watching him begin to play in coffee houses and then release an album, get signed.

He was a musician who got signed who came out of Asbury Park to become well known, to become famous, to take his talent to a larger demographic and a huge fan base. So after the release of greetings from Asbury Park and the Wilde, Innocent and the East Street Shuffle, everyone in Asbury Park was thrilled to watch Bruce's success. But then, of course, born to run came out. and it took it just to a whole new stratosphere. Was it an instant success, Eileen? It was a fairly instant success.

You know, when Bruce released Born to Run, he didn't have a lot of support from his record label at the time. He knew what was on the line and there was a letter that was circulated at Columbia Records suggesting that they put all of their promotional assets into Billy Joel, who was an up-and-coming star right around the same time, and to not invest in Bruce Springsteen, who had two albums that just did not sell well. And his manager, Michael Pell, took a lot of the promotional aspects of this release into his own hands by sending handmade cassette tapes out to radio DJs and really helping to spread the word from Asbury Park in the East Coast

to a larger demographic across the country and even globally. Yeah, cassette tapes. I remember those from the 70s. Now, Eileen, I have to ask you this. How did you come across this album? How did you feel about it the first time you heard it? Well, ironically, the first time I heard this album played on the radio, I was standing on Ocean Avenue near the Stone Pony,

and there was a car stopped at a red light, and Born to Run was being played on the radio. E.L. What do you think, Bruce Springsteen and his E Street band, what have they meant to the image, the reputation of the Jersey Shore over the last several decades? Bruce Springsteen and the East Street banner are still local guys. As a councilperson in Asbury Park, I often talk to people who come to visit. And I ask them, you know, what brought you here? Why are you here? And in many cases, it's, we are fans of Bruce Springsteen.

And we wanted to see the places that he wrote about. And so it's always been, it's been a pilgrimage. for so many people to come to the Jersey Shore and, you know, visit the Stone Pony and visit the boardwalk. And it's been, you know, just such an amazing time. We've been speaking with Eileen Chapman. She directs the Springsteen Archives in West Long Branch, New Jersey on this 50th anniversary of Born to Run. I mean, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you. It's great to be here.

Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from W. NYC. Check us out for updates every weekday, three times a date, for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back this evening. NYC, NYC, NYC.