This is News?!? Heck, I see these spiders all the time in Southern Kansas. They like dark, dry places. Have to check my shoes in the springtime before I put them on! Perhaps it is news for New York City, but I know the Brown Recluse is widespread, in every contiguous state, I believe.
This isn’t a big ‘scoop’ or anything. This is what we call a ‘slow news day.’
It is news for NYC...the spider is not native there and apparently hasn’t been established there either.
Either they are establishing themselves here in the NE or a small population of them was trucked in somehow and wound up in this apartment.