Two Worldwide Plaza

 skyscraper, condominium, 1989_construction

425-foot, 38-story postmodern residential building completed in 1989 as part of the Worldwide Plaza complex. Designed by Frank Williams & Associates, it is also known as Worldwide Plaza Condominiums. The major residential portion of the development, it contains 455 condominiums, and is separated by a plaza from the taller office tower, which has a different but complementary design.

The tower is clad in similar materials to the office tower, and is connected by a series of 12 continuous townhouses to the 7-story Three Worldwide Plaza at the west end of the block. It is clad in contrasting red and beige brick, with two low-rise wings at the north and south extending out to the sidewalk. The south wing has six floors, while the north is only five due to the ground-floor being double-height with commercial storefronts. The south wing has two wide segmental-arches with storefronts; to the left is a service door and an entrance and exit to the underground parking garage. At the 2nd floor there are seven sets of double-windows above metal vents with a continuous lintel course and beige brick banding framing the vents. The 3rd-5th floors have two bays of double-windows in the middle, with tripartite windows at the ends that wrap around the corners to align with wider, 5-pane windows at the south end of the east elevation; at the west elevation, they extend from the corner with a double-window back to the recessed upper floors of the adjoining townhouses. The two middle bays are joined at the 6th floor. Further back on the east elevation, there are two bays of double-windows (joined at the top floor) and an end bay of tripartite windows. The 6th floor is topped by beige brick banding and stone coping. The north wing mostly matches, except that there is a large vent in place of the service door at the ground floor, and the the main entrance to the residential areas replaces the parking garage entrances. To the east of both wings, a landscaped passageway leads back to the plaza and the main tower, which extends slightly further east than the wings.

The north and south facades of the tower have four center bays (with double-windows in the middle and tripartite windows to the outside, which wrap around a corner to the recessed outer bays). The inner sets of these outer bays have double-windows, and the outer sets have tripartite windows that also wrap around the corners. The piers are clad in beige brick, and the spandrels are beige brick at the tripartite bays and red brick at the double-window bays, each with a black metal vent. The outer bays set back above the 34th floor, while the center bays extend up to the main roof line, above which the piers slightly project, and the tower is capped by a copper diamond-shaped top (a nod to the much larger one crowning One Worldwide Plaza).

The east and west facades have two projecting center bays with tripartite windows (separated by a red-brick pier instead of beige) that wrap around the corners. These two bays set back above the 30th floor. To either side is a double-window bay and end bays with tripartite windows wrapping around the corners to the tripartite windows at the ends of the north and south elevations. The spandrels have beige brick, except for the double-window bays, which have red brick. Like the north and south sides, these facades set back above the 34th floor, creating a cross shape at the final four floors below the crowning pyramid.