Houses put up by shipwrights
Shipyards shaped Greenpoint's early houses. The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Greenpoint Historic District on September 14, 1982, and its report says "some of the houses were actually built by shipwrights and ship carpenters" (LP-1248). The Continental Iron Works "covered seven acres along the waterfront and employed 1400 men"; the keel of the ironclad Monitor was laid there on October 25, 1861. Franklin Street, the report continues, "has buildings from the early 1850s with shops on the ground floor and flats above making it the area's first commercial center". In 1886 the oil refiner Charles Pratt built the Astral Apartments, "one of the country's first model housing developments for workers", on Franklin Street between Java and India Streets.
City Planning adds: "Neat rows of brick and masonry row houses can also be seen in Greenpoint east of Monsignor McGolrick Park," and the historic district "features distinctive 19th century brick row houses commissioned by business owners, foremen, and professionals who had worked on the nearby waterfront" (2009 contextual rezoning summary). A second, industrial district sits near the river. The Eberhard Faber Pencil Company Historic District, designated October 30, 2007, "consists of eight buildings and one freestanding wall" around Greenpoint Avenue, Kent Street and West Street (LP-2264).
59.8%: the share of homes in three- to nine-unit buildings
For ZIP code tabulation area 11222, the Census Bureau's 2020–2024 American Community Survey estimates roughly 22,902 housing units. Of those, 21.9% are in three- and four-unit buildings and 37.9% in buildings of five to nine units, 59.8% together (table B25024). Some 55.8% of units are in structures built before 1940 (table B25034), and only 18.1% of occupied homes are owner-occupied (table B25003).
On those ZIP-wide numbers, a buyer here is more likely than elsewhere to be looking at a small multi-family building, often a pre-1940 one. That is our reading of the table. Two things follow. Local Law 152 exempts only one- and two-family homes, so most buildings changing hands here fall under the gas piping inspection schedule. Greenpoint belongs to Community District 1, which the schedule puts in sub-cycle A, so after the 2024 filing year the next one is 2028.
Second, a six-family is inspected as a small apartment house, not as a large home. We ask for access to every apartment and to the cellar, roof and public hall. The list for a building of this age and size generally includes:
- the fire escape, its wall anchors and the drop ladder;
- one boiler heating every floor, its age, its venting and the condition of the chimney liner;
- a bank of gas and electric meters in the cellar, and whether each apartment's panel matches the loads inside it;
- stacked kitchens and baths on shared cast-iron waste lines, with the ceiling below each checked for stains;
- on wood-frame buildings, the sill at grade and what lies under the newer siding. City Planning notes that most blocks in the combined Greenpoint and Williamsburg study area "consist of 2-4 story wood-frame attached houses and apartment buildings".
Oil and solvents below ground: what the public record says
In a settlement announced November 17, 2010, the state Attorney General said "at least 17 million gallons of oil were released underneath Greenpoint" and "at least 55 acres of the community are now contaminated". The settlement committed ExxonMobil to clean up floating oil, groundwater, soil and soil vapors (AG release; DEC project page). Neither document maps the affected blocks, so we will not guess at them.
A separate state site, the Meeker Avenue Plume Trackdown (number 224121), involves chlorinated solvents "found in soil, soil vapor and groundwater", which investigators traced between 2007 and 2009 to four sources (DEC fact sheet, November 2016). The U.S. EPA's October 2, 2024 plan for that site covers over 190 acres and calls for sealing slab cracks and installing sub-slab depressurization systems. Newtown Creek, once lined with more than 50 industrial facilities, oil refineries among them, joined the federal Superfund list on September 27, 2010 (EPA release).
A visual home inspection cannot sample soil vapor or groundwater. What it can do is describe the cellar: the state of the slab, open sumps and pits, any mitigation fan and piping already in place, and odors worth a follow-up question. Whether a lot lies inside a mapped plume is a records request your attorney makes to the state.
Where Sandy came in
The city's account: water "from the East River and Newtown Creek caused flooding of streets and properties all along the neighborhood's perimeters. Floodwaters, for example, came significantly inland in the neighborhood's northeast, entering largely along Greenpoint Avenue and McGuinness Boulevard," with more flooding in the southwest near Williamsburg (SIRR, chapter 14). It is a record of the 2012 storm, not a flood-zone finding for any address. For your lot, the city's stormwater map and the FEMA Map Service Center are the two lookups. On those perimeter streets, ask where the boiler, water heater and electric service sit relative to the cellar floor.
Towers on the river, a 50-foot cap inland
The 2005 Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning (DCP summary) allowed towers along the East River; the height limits are set out on our Williamsburg page. On that waterfront, the city's housing agency cut the ribbon on April 3, 2024 for a 22-story, all-electric tower with 374 affordable apartments at 35 Commercial Street. Inland, the 2009 rezoning mapped R6B, with its 50-foot cap, over roughly 80% of the area, and R6A along wide streets such as northern McGuinness Boulevard. In a tower condo, a unit inspection covers the apartment; facade filings and energy-law status are read from the building's records.
Two G stops and a ferry
The state's station list shows two subway stations, Greenpoint Av, which is accessible, and Nassau Av, both on the G train, which does not enter Manhattan. NYC Ferry's East River route also serves Greenpoint.
Booking
We cover Greenpoint from our East New York base. You choose Bangla or English for the walkthrough, and the report follows that same day. Small apartment houses are handled as a multi-family inspection; contact us with the address and the unit count.