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Please add profiles of people who were born, lived or died in (or were notable for their ties to) Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
Greenpoint is the northernmost neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, in the U.S. state of New York. It is bordered on the southwest by Williamsburg at Bushwick Inlet Park and McCarren Park; on the southeast by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and East Williamsburg; on the north by Newtown Creek and the neighborhood of Long Island City in Queens; and on the west by the East River. The neighborhood has a large Polish immigrant and Polish-American community, containing many Polish restaurants, markets, and businesses, and it is often referred to as Little Poland.
Originally farmland-many of the farm owners' family names, such as Meserole (Messerole) and Calyer, are current street names-the residential core of Greenpoint was built on parcels divided during the Industrial Revolution and late 19th century, with rope factories and lumber yards lining the East River to the west, while the northeastern section along the Newtown Creek through East Williamsburg became an industrial maritime area.
Greenpoint has long held a reputation of being a working class and immigrant neighborhood, and it initially attracted families and workers with its abundance of factory jobs, heavy industry and manufacturing, shipbuilding, and longshoreman or dock work. Since the early 2000s, a building boom in the neighborhood has made the neighborhood increasingly a center of nightlife and gentrification, and a 2005 rezoning enabled the construction of high density residential buildings on the East River waterfront. There have also been efforts to reclaim the rezoned East River waterfront for recreational use and also to extend a continuous promenade into the Newtown Creek area.
Greenpoint is part of Brooklyn Community District 1, and its primary ZIP Code is 11222. It is patrolled by the 94th Precinct of the New York City Police Department.
Notable people with ties to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, from Wikipedia:
- Dorota Andraka (born 1961), Polish-American educator
- Awkwafina (born 1988), rapper and actress
- Pat Benatar (born 1953), pop singer
- Ralph Albert Blakelock (1847-1919), painter
- Margaret Wise Brown (1910-1952), children's book author who wrote Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny
- Bull Dempsey (born 1988), professional wrestler
- Joe DiGangi (1914-2009), New York Yankees bullpen catcher
- Joseph Di Prisco (born 1950), poet, novelist, memoirist, book reviewer and teacher
- Donna Esposito, singer-songwriter-guitarist
- Craig Finn (born 1971), singer-songwriter and musician
- John Franzese (1917-2020), mobster
- Dorothy Gambrell, cartoonist
- Susanna Heller (1956-2021), painter
- Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948), statesman, politician and jurist who served as the 11th Chief Justice of the United States from 1930 to 1941
- Richard Humann (born 1961), neo-conceptual artist
- Joe Jones (1934-1993), musician
- George W. Kavanagh (1880-1914), politician and lawyer
- Stephen P. Kennedy (1906-1978), New York City Police Commissioner and law enforcement officer
- Iwona Korga (born 1967), Polish-American historian, archivist and educator
- Stephen Levin (born 1980 or 1981), non-profit executive and politician
- Charles I. D. Looff (1852-1918), Danish master carver and builder of hand-carved carousels and amusement rides, known for creating the Coney Island style of carosel carving
- John MacCrate (1885-1976), lawyer, a politician and a justice of the New York Supreme Court
- Frank A. Miller (1888-1931), politician
- John Mulvany (c. 1839 - 1906), artist best known for his paintings of the American West
- William P. O'Brien (1891-1960), New York City Police Commissioner and law enforcement officer
- Daniel J. O'Donnell (born 1960), politician
- Frank Philbrick (born 1978), professional baseball player, carpenter and author
- Samuel H. Pine (1827-1904), ship designer and builder
- Fred W. Preller (1902-1974), politician
- James F. Quigley (1859-1935), lawyer and politician
- Lincoln Restler (born 1984), politician and civil servant
- Mickey Rooney (1920-2014), actor
- Betty Smith (1896-1972), playwright and novelist, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
- John Smolenski (1891-1953), businessperson and politician
- Kasper Sonne (born 1974), Danish artist
- Antonio Tomasulo (1917-2003), Italian-American mobster in the New York Bonanno crime family
- Chris Tomson (born 1984), singer, songwriter and musician
- Mae West (1893-1980), actress