It was a city first
Williamsburg had its own government before it belonged to Brooklyn. By the Landmarks Preservation Commission's Fillmore Place report, when it became a city "on January 1, 1852, its population was 35,000 and it was the twentieth largest urban area in America". It was "consolidated with Brooklyn in 1855, at which time it lost the 'h'" from Williamsburgh (LP-2333). The Fillmore Place Historic District, designated May 12, 2009, is "a small and intact enclave of 29 properties consisting mostly of multi-family flats buildings erected in the mid-nineteenth century". The report traces the enclave to the late 1840s and early 1850s; masons Jacob Sheppard and John Rourke built the nine houses at 12 to 28 Fillmore Place.
Industry followed the water. LPC's Greenpoint Historic District report says that by 1875 about fifty oil refineries were operating in Brooklyn, most along Newtown Creek and the East River, "with the greatest number in Williamsburgh along Kent Avenue" (LP-1248). Sugar was on Kent Avenue too: the Havemeyers and Elder refinery at 292-314, built 1881-84, later Domino Sugar, and a city landmark since September 25, 2007 (LP-2268).
11211 and 11249 are not the same market
About 29,447 housing units in one ZIP code tabulation area, 11211, and about 19,310 in the other, 11249: those are the closest census geographies to Williamsburg, and neither follows a neighborhood line. The 2024 five-year American Community Survey figures below are ZIP-wide estimates.
- ZIP 11211: 40.2% of units in structures from before 1940 and 21.5% from 2010 or later (table B25034). Buildings of five to nine units hold 20.1% of homes and those of 20 to 49 units hold 28.3% (table B25024).
- ZIP 11249: only 19.3% pre-1940, with 51.9% built since 2000 and 34.3% since 2010 (table B25034). Some 51.9% of homes are in buildings of 50 or more units (table B25024), and 40.4% of occupied homes heat with electricity (table B25040), against 26.7% in 11211 (same table).
Three votes that set building heights
- May 11, 2005. The City Council adopted the Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning: "nearly 200 blocks", including "two miles of Brooklyn's East River waterfront". On the waterfront it allowed towers of up to 250 feet, and up to 350 feet for some, for developments using the affordable-housing bonus (DCP summary).
- March 1, 2006. A follow-up placed "contextual height limits on approximately 19 upland blocks in Williamsburg zoned for mixed use".
- July 29, 2009. The contextual rezoning covered about 175 blocks of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, reaching south to Scholes and Maujer Streets. It replaced R6, "a height factor district with no height limits", on most blocks with R6B, which caps buildings at 50 feet (DCP summary).
Frame house, flats, newer apartment, loft: what changes
The frame row house
Across the 175 blocks of the 2009 rezoning, Greenpoint included, City Planning found mostly attached wood-frame houses and apartment buildings of two to four stories. Where a frame house of this age has been re-sided, the frame underneath is what matters. We probe the sill plate front and rear, look for staining where the siding meets the neighbor's wall, and check whether the cellar beam has been cut for ductwork.
The mid-nineteenth-century flats building
Fillmore Place is the documented example, multi-family from the start. A flats building of that period typically has brick walls, wood joists and a single stair. We look at the fire escape anchors, the shared cast-iron stack, the gas meters and how the branch wiring was extended apartment by apartment.
The apartment in a post-2005 building
The ZIP 11249 figures above describe this product: half of all homes in buildings of 50 or more units, and electric heat in about four of ten occupied homes; in newer buildings that usually means through-wall or ducted heat-pump units. Inside one apartment we test that equipment and its drains, windows and balcony doors, the panel and the exhaust fans. The facade, roof and mechanical plant are not visible from a unit; ask the board for the latest facade filing and the building's Local Law 97 standing.
The loft
City Planning's 2005 summary notes a Special Northside Mixed Use District "created in 1976". The state Loft Law, Article 7-C of the Multiple Dwelling Law, turns former commercial space into "safe, rent-stabilized residences" meeting the fire standards of Article 7-B, and the Loft Board notes that its Industrial Business Zone exclusion does not apply to the Williamsburg and Greenpoint zones. Whether a building is registered is your attorney's question. We report on sprinklers, the second exit, and how plumbing and gas cross a floor never laid out for kitchens.
Sandy, Newtown Creek and the Meeker Avenue plume
The city's post-Sandy report states that "flooding and damage in Williamsburg was minimal, with waters rarely going far inland". It also says the surge "pushed into Newtown Creek", which carried water to "parts of Maspeth, Bushwick, and East Williamsburg" (SIRR, chapter 14). For your own lot, search the address at the FEMA Map Service Center.
The state also tracks a chlorinated-solvent plume around Meeker Avenue (DEC fact sheet). DEC lists the site at Meeker Avenue, Brooklyn; the U.S. EPA describes it as more than 190 acres in the Greenpoint and East Williamsburg area (EPA release, October 2, 2024). Details are on our Greenpoint page. A home inspection does not sample soil vapor, and near Meeker Avenue the environmental records are a request for your attorney.
Gas piping dates and the three subway lines
Community District 1 is in sub-cycle A of the Local Law 152 schedule. Buildings here last had to file in 2024; the next round runs January 1 to December 31, 2028. One- and two-family houses are exempt.
City Planning: "Williamsburg is served by the G, L, and J-M-Z subway lines." In the state's station list, that means Bedford Av and Lorimer St on the L, Metropolitan Av on the G, and Marcy Av on the J, M and Z, among others.
Our base is East New York. The on-site explanation can be in Bangla or English; the written report is yours that day. Read about multi-family inspections or single-unit and house inspections, then write to us with the building type.