World's Tower Building | office building, skyscraper

 office building, skyscraper

335-foot, 30-story Neo-Gothic/Beaux-Arts office building completed in 1914. Designed by Buchman & Fox for Edward Browning, it is clad in white terra-cotta with intricate detailing. This skyscraper is unique in that all four sides are equally detailed to the level of the main entry, rather than left as blank secondary facades.

The narrow north and south facades are three bays wide, while the east and west sides have five bays. Each side has windows set in bronze frames. At the north facade, the four piers sit on large grey granite bases. There is a glass-doored entrance in the middle bay, flanked by plate-glass storefronts. The piers are lined with square panel with quatrefoils; at the 2nd floor, two of the panels around the center bay have gaping-mouthed fish creatures that originally supported an entrance canopy. The 2nd & 3rd floors have tripartite windows in the end bays, and double-windows in the middle bay; black cast-iron spandrels separate the floors, with fluted panels and geometric ornament in the center of the middle panel. The bands of quatrefoils run across the top of the 3rd floor; at each pier a bearded figure in medieval garb struggles to uphold a cornice decorated with cabbages and leaves.

From the 4th floor up, the end bays have three evenly-spaced windows and the middle bay has two windows. They are framed in rope moldings at the 4th-6th floors, where the piers have columns of decorative circles over ornate backgrounds, framed by thick rope moldings. Both the 4th & 6th floors are topped by cornices, and the 6th-floor windows are round-arched. The spandrels between the 5th & 6th floors each have four vertical bars. From the 7th-18th floor the piers rise from Gothic bases, and have columns of roughly-rectangular, vertically-oriented panels; the spandrels all match those below the 6th floor. The 18th-floor windows at round-arched, and there is ornament at the tops of the piers; those in the center form the bases for angled, projecting piers at the upper floors. The outer piers at the upper floors have a pattern of diamonds with floral fill. Band courses run across the 18th, 19th, and 22nd floors, the latter of which has segmental-arches at the top of each bay, with shields over the band course.

The 24th floor also has round-arched windows, and a narrow string course at the top. The 25th floor has quatrefoil windows, and is topped by a cornice like the one over the 3rd floor, with cabbages and leaves. Above the cornice rises a crenelated parapet; it has Gothic finials at the corners and a triangular pediment with a large shield at the middle bay.

The south facade matches that of the north except for at the lowest floors. The east and west facades have five windows in the wide middle bay, flanked by bays of two windows, and end bays of three windows. The design elements match those on the north and south facades, with two pediments at the 25th-floor parapet, located over the two 2-window bays.

Recessed back from and above the parapet is a thin, square-shaped 5-story upper tower. It has corner piers and fields of cross-hatching in each facade. The north and south sides have single-windows at the 26th-29th floors, while the east and west sides have narrow triple-windows, taller at the 29th floor. There is a band course wrapping all the way around the bottom of the 29th floor, and spandrels with vertical bars and a diamond shape in the center, between the three lower floors of the upper tower. The 30th floor again has quatrefoil windows - bands of four on the north and south, and bands of five on the east and west. A cornice tops this floor, surmounted by a final parapet with spires at the corners and stepped-up triangular pediments at the center of each facade.

An adjoining 6-story building to the east has been joined internally with the World's Tower Building. It was actually completed first, in 1877. The facade is clad in light-grey-painted brick above a ground floor of limestone, with grey granite bases for the framing piers, and a wide plate-glass storefront with central doors. The upper floors have bands of six rather narrow windows divided by black iron mullions. Each floor has a stone sill, and there is a black metal cornice above the 5th floor. The top floor has a band of angled-back skylight windows with a smaller metal cornice at the top. The ground floor is occupied by Croton Reservoir Tavern.

The World's Tower Building was fully renovated in 2008. Its ground floor is occupied by Burgers and Brew restaurant, and Kobeyaki restaurant.