These newcomers are drawn to a patch of Brooklyn that happens to be right near bohemian Williamsburg and has its own rough-hewn, Old World charm — Manhattan and Greenpoint Avenues are meccas for Polish food — and a lively art and film scene along an increasingly animated Franklin Avenue. Subways can whisk them to Midtown Manhattan in half an hour, and a new East River ferry service may speed up the commute.

When 118 Greenpoint Avenue opened as a condominium building two years ago, the apartments seemed highly desirable — tall ceilings, modern kitchens and bathrooms, duplexes outfitted with laundry rooms. Condos were offered at prices as high as $675,000.

But residents say many condos ended up as rentals, perhaps because of the difficulty of selling apartments near a slaughterhouse. Nevertheless, it was the block’s quirky charm and affordable rents that drew people like Mr. Rodgers, who has a side line as an independent filmmaker with a company called B1L Productions.

“I’m no dummy, and I thought it would be a curiosity for a production company if we could tell our clients to ‘Follow your nose to B1L Productions,’ ” Mr. Rodgers said. “I had no idea of the way they delivered birds in the morning.”

But he found out not long after he moved in, when the chicken deliveries roused him before sunrise. The slaughterhouse is buzzing from 5 a.m. to the early afternoon. Still, the experience was not quite as bothersome before the warm, windless days of late spring, when the stench, he said, became intolerable.

Mr. Rodgers argues that a chicken slaughterhouse should not be permitted in a residential neighborhood. But New Lee’s and other factories in the neighborhood were grandfathered in under the very zoning changes that deemed the area residential. Still, Mr. Rodgers thinks that the city should be working to help factories like Mr. Lee’s relocate.