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"This beautiful new Fairway is the crown jewel in Red Hook's astounding renaissance," Senator Charles E. Schumer said during a ceremony in 2006 marking the store's opening. "Red Hook has a rich history, and the new Fairway will certainly be a part of its tremendous future."

And until October 29, 2012, the store did exactly what residents and politicians had hoped: quickly becoming an anchor in a neighborhood that was ascendant. Small shops opened all around the market on Van Brunt Street, water taxi service reconnected the square-mile peninsula to Manhattan and young people flocked to the area.

Then Hurricane Sandy hit.

After the winds subsided and the water receded, many businesses and homes throughout the neighborhood were left wrecked, and Fairway, the key to the neighborhood's rebirth, became a symbol of its devastation.

More than five feet of water poured into the store, overturning display cases, drowning mountains of cheese and meats, and forcing the store to be shuttered.

It took four months and hundreds of workers, but on Friday the 52,000-square-foot grocery store opened for the first time after the storm.

And once again, the occasion was viewed as something bigger than just the opening of a place to get food and drink.

"Red Hook is back!" Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg wrote on Twitter as he made his way to an event marking the store's reopening. He was joined by the Brooklyn borough president, Marty Markowitz, and Miss America, Mallory Hagan, who spoke before the doors officially opened at 11 a.m. Hundreds of people were outside the store waiting to get in.

Other stores in the neighborhood that suffered – like Steve's Key Lime and the Red Hook Winery – are also recovering.

But it is Fairway that is often credited with helping revitalize the neighborhood.

Once a thriving industrial area, the neighborhood was left cut off from the rest of Brooklyn by the Gowanus Expressway and the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. And for years, it languished.

But when the city began to seriously commit to restoring its waterfront, Red Hook, with its historic buildings and stunning views of Lower Manhattan and New York Harbor, was a prime target for development.

"Revitalizing our waterfront and connecting it to neighborhoods is one of our primary economic development goals," Mr. Bloomberg said when the store opened in 2006. "And there is no better example of what we can accomplish than what is under way along the Brooklyn waterfront in Red Hook."

But even as officials hailed the store's reopening, the damage caused by the storm brought with it many questions about the best way to continue to develop the waterfront while guarding against natural disasters, particularly the threat of rising sea levels.

The Civil War-era warehouse that houses Fairway has stood for more than 150 years, and there was no record of a storm causing the kind of damage unleashed by Hurricane Sandy.

But Mr. Bloomberg has said that, as the climate changes, the city must be prepared for future storms of similar power.

Still, on Friday the focus was on celebrating the store's reopening.

Howard Glickberg, the Fairway founder, said that on Thursday, he broke out the champagne to celebrate the store's rebirth.

"I had tears in my eye. I built this store six years ago. It's like one of my children," Mr. Glickberg told WCBS radio on Friday morning. "We have an obligation, not just to Fairway, but to all of Red Hook."