There are two interesting walking tours coming up this weekend in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. The first, highlighting Williamsburg and Greenpoint’s Industrial Heritage, is sponsored by the Waterfront Preservation Alliance of Greenpoint & Williamsburg. The second is a tour of the Endangered Waterfront, led by Francis Morrone and sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. Here’s some info on both, courtesy of the WPA:

Williamsburg & Greenpoint’s Industrial Heritage Walking Tour
Sunday, August 19, 1:00 – 4:00 pm.
This neighborhood’s industrial and social history, as well as recent efforts to preserve its historic buildings, will be explored on this tour led by Mary Habstritt, Preservation Committee Chair, and Ward Dennis, historian and member of the Waterfront Preservation Alliance of Greenpoint & Williamsburg. Sites along the way will include the Williamsburg Bridge, Domino Sugar, the Austin, Nichols & Co. Warehouse, remnants of American Manufacturing Co., once the world’s largest rope factory (aka Greenpoint Terminal Market), and Eberhard Faber’s pencil plant.
Meet at the HSBC/Williamsburg Savings Bank, at 175 Broadway (corner of Driggs). Take the J,M,Z subway to Marcy Av. and walk west (toward the East River) on Broadway to the bank.

Greenpoint and Williamsburg — Endangered Waterfront Tour
Sunday, August 19, 4:30 PM
Location: Meet at Manhattan and Greenpoint avenues, by the Greenpoint Ave. station of the G train, Brooklyn
Reservations: Not required
Tour fee: $15, $12 MAS members

These once-bustling working waterfronts lost most of their shipping and manufacturing after World War II, and now even the ghostly remnants of days gone by are being swept aside by a ferocious tide of gentrification, rezoning, and rebuilding as developers reshape these historic waterfronts into enclaves of posh housing. This tour, sponsored by the Municipal Art Society, will look at the current and future redevelopment, and search for the bits left over from the past–some deserving of landmark status.
Leader: Francis Morrone, architectural historian.

If you find a way to move really quickly, you can probably do both.