Greenpoint
Neighborhood Intelligence

Greenpoint is the northernmost neighborhood in Brooklyn, bordered by Newtown Creek and Queens to the north, the East River to the west, and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway corridor to the east. It was farmland first; many of the farm families' names, such as Meserole and Calyer, survive as street names. Rope factories, lumber yards, shipbuilding, and other industry later lined the waterfront, and the USS Monitor, the Union Navy's first ironclad warship, was built at a Greenpoint yard during the Civil War. The neighborhood has a large Polish immigrant and Polish-American community, which has earned it the nickname Little Poland.

The residential core is a grid of rowhouses and walk-ups, with the Greenpoint Historic District protecting rows of historic commercial and residential buildings. The Greenpoint Reformed Church stands on Milton Street within the district, and Monsignor McGolrick Park is a neighborhood park to the east. A 2005 rezoning allowed high-density residential buildings on the East River waterfront, where WNYC Transmitter Park and the Newtown Creek Nature Walk offer public access to the water. The Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, with its egg-shaped digesters, is a distinctive feature of the northern skyline.