HIPNESS is contagious in Brooklyn, where expanding the global brand seems to be a done deal.

On a scorching July afternoon, the frisson of hustle and bustle that delineates the weekday rush hour was in full swing at the intersection of Greenpoint and Manhattan Avenues, the dowdy commercial heart of Greenpoint. Horns blared, and unlike other times of day or night, when the traffic ranges from intermittent to invisible, pedestrians actually did have to look both ways before jaywalking. In this, the genuine Brooklyn, crosswalks are for sissies, classic apartments are walk-ups, loud is the default sound level, and burly men of a certain vintage still wear sleeveless undershirts in public.

Until Greenpoint’s artsy sister neighborhood to the south, Williamsburg, set a brash example by surrendering to glassy condominium and hotel towers and urbane renewal that yanked the cost of shelter in a Manhattan-ish direction, vinyl-sided six-family tenements were the backbone of the housing stock here. And century-old trees shaded the crumbling sidewalks. But lately the biggest shadow being cast in Greenpoint belongs to Williamsburg.

Vinyl siding doesn’t represent Greenpoint’s cachet any longer; virtual doormen, rooftop farms, artisanal gin and brick-faced condominiums do. The virtual gatekeeper is a prime amenity at the sold-out 93-unit Pencil Factory condominium on West Street, where the penthouse sold for just over $1 million, a neighborhood first.

For young men, and for some young women, sculptured hair, baggy shorts and tattoos, not the clingy undershirt, are the new sartorial normal. Tomcats Barbershop, specializing in pompadour, punk and glam-rocker concoctions, and Hair Metal Salon (branching out from none other than Williamsburg) have arrived to coif the wired-in and amped-up young consumers who are the reason the neighborhood expects to build 7,300 new housing units by the end of 2013.