Assessing levels of airborne bioallergens in New York City.

Sampling of airborne ragweed and other pollen grains in the City of New York is described as it took place during the months of August and September 1973. Three sampling stations participated in the program. This effort was meant to serve as the forerunner of a citywide volunteer pollen sampling network based on the cooperation of existing health care providing institutions, schools, and stations of the operational sampling network of the New York City Department of Air Resources. Monitoring stations were set up on the roof of Cooper Union School of Engineering at 51 Astor Place in downtown Manhattan, at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, Inc. at Yonkers, N.Y. and use was made of the data supplied by Middlesex General Hospital, New Brunswick, N.J. Seasonal results of ragweed pollen sampling, undertaken at the downtown New York City location of Cooper Union with the swing-shield intermittant rotoslide sampler, are similar to those of studies undertaken in the 1940's and 1950's with the Durham slide sampler in the New York metropolitan area. Comparison of the collected data with converted data obtained in 1979 at Long Island Jewish-Hillside Medical Center with the aid of a Durham gravity slide sampler shows the trend similarity of the data collected by us in 1973 and those obtained in 1979. Collected data of the 1973 ragweed season were supplied to the New York City news media on a daily basis, as a much appreciated service to the public.