Greenpoint's waterfront location and proximity to Williamsburg and Manhattan made it an inevitable candidate for transformation during the past decade, when health food stores and coffee bars began to replace some of the old-time pierogi shops and Polish taverns on the main drag, Nassau Street. The neighborhood's long-term major crime rate was down 73 percent from 1993 to 2010, with an 84 percent drop in car thefts, to 147, leading the decline. In 2010, the historically safe neighborhood's 94th Precinct was one of just four in the city to enjoy a murder-free year. It also tied for the least number of reported rapes, at two.

Still, that decline has slowed considerably, and Greenpoint's relative isolation could account for the neighborhood's recent spike in overall crime, to 905 incidents in 2010 compared with 845 in 2009, a 7 percent increase, and for its disappointing 50th place out of 69 neighborhoods for per capita crime in DNAinfo.com's safety ranking of New York's neighborhoods, with 161 crimes per 10,000 residents. Much of the jump was due to property crime. Greenpoint registered only a 7 percent dip in major crimes from 2001 to 2010, rather than the double-digit drops seen in 66 other neighborhoods. That was thanks to its increases in grand larcenies — up a stunning 78 percent since 2001 — and burglaries, which also climbed during that period.