One Worldwide Plaza (New York City, New York)

 office building, skyscraper, 1989_construction, postmodern (architecture)

778-foot, 50-story Postmodern office building completed in 1989. Designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, One Worldwide Plaza is part of a 3-building, mixed-use commercial and residential complex. One Worldwide Plaza is a commercial office tower on Eighth Avenue. Two Worldwide Plaza is a residential condominium tower west of the center of the block, and Three Worldwide Plaza is a low-rise condominium residential building with street level stores on Ninth Avenue, to the west of the towers, joined by rows of townhouses to Two Worldwide Plaza.

The base of the building is made of 2-toned pink granite and precast concrete, and the tower facade is clad in brick in tan, red, and white. The building is crowned by a copper roof and glass pyramid known as "David's Diamond" after the architect, David Childs. The pyramid roof, despite its size, is not visible from the street when looking directly up the sides of the building.

The base has has 5-story curved center sections on all four facades, flanked by 3-story wings.The main entrances are in the lower level of the rounded sections on the west and east facades; they each have three double-height entrance portals, with the largest one in the middle. These lead into entry vestibules with the glass doors set far back, framed between imposing, squared granite columns. The two piers between the portals have large, iron-and-glass light fixtures. The 3 top floors of the curved sections have a bay of paired windows in the middle, flanked by a bay of three windows; the windows are set in fields of darker granite, and a slightly-projecting band courses cross near the tops of the 3rd-floor windows, creating transoms. The 4th & 5th floors overlap slightly with the end wings with additional single-windows. The curved sections are capped by modest granite cornices. The curved sections on the north and south facades also have a large central portal with slightly smaller ones at the ends, but these are separated by even smaller, single-story portals with small, square openings above. Four light fixtures are attached to the piers between the five portals. The upper floors of the north and south curved sections are similar, except that they consist of a middle bay of paired windows, flanked by a bay of single-windows, another bay of paired windows, and end bays of paired windows overlapping the 3-story end wings.

On the north and south facades, the end wings each span five bays, and on the east and west sides they have three. At the ground floor the piers are banded with darker stone (the banding also extends onto the lower parts of the piers at the curved sections), and have squat, low bases. The bays are segmental-arched, with recessed display-windows with narrow, angled side panes that project out; dark-grey metal lintels with rounded ends cap the display windows. Above the banding, near the top of each window, the piers are decorated with half-globe light fixtures inscribed in circles. The middle bays on the east side of both the north and south facades have glass doors with entrances to the subway. The west two bays on the north facade have loading docks, and the next bay has a pair of metal service doors. At the 2nd floor of the wings there are similar recessed bays with projecting tripartite bay-windows; these are filled by dark-grey metal vents in all five bays of the south facade's west wing, all five bays of the north facade's east wing, all three bays of the east facade's north wing, and in the west two bays of the north facade's west wing (above the loading docks). The 3rd (top) floor of the wings matches the 3rd floor on the curved sections, with modest dentiled cornices along the tops.

The brick-clad tower rises up sheer from the base on the north and south sides, with small setbacks on the east and west above the 12th, 15th, & 17th floors, transitioning from a rectangular to a square shape in plan. The corners are chamfered and have small, almost-square windows. Each facade has two more square windows at the edges near the corners, and the middle sections have seven bays alternating single- and paired windows. The spandrels in the middle sections are red brick. The lower east and west facade's floors before the setbacks have five bays of alternating paired and single-windows, also with red-brick spandrels. The setbacks are marked by white-brick terminations.

The red-brick spandrel sections end at the 37th floor. Above the 39th floor, the corner sections set back to a larger chamfer, creating an octagonal shape near the top of the tower. On the four main facades, the red-brick spandrels resume between the 40th-43rd floors. At these floors, they also appear in the paired-window bay on the narrower, chamfered facades, flanked by single-windows. The 44th & 45th floors are clad in white brick; the 46th floor is set-back and serves as the base for the giant pyramidal copper top.

The crown is also octagonal in shape, with four main facades, and four narrower, angled facades at the corners. Near the base of the crown there are three circular dormer windows on each facade, and one on each of the corners. Higher up, there are smaller versions, above which the crown terminates in an illuminated glass pyramid.

The ground floor is occupied by a Starbucks coffee, Just Salad, Donna Bell's Bake Shop, Pret-a-Manger restaurant, Barber Shop NYC, and Blue Dog Kitchen Bar. It is currently managed by RXR Realty.

www.rxrrealty.com/property/new-york-city/manhattan/worl...