2nd wordpress install in subdirectory

I’ve been looking all over the forums and support and have only found outdated “closed” topics for this, although none were sufficiently answered. I’m trying to install a second wordpress in a subdirectory on my site and nothing is working. I have the main worpress in a subdirectory (call it https://www.mysite.com/wp1), set up to run as if it’s in the root. It works fine.

Now, I’m trying to install a completely separate wordpress (different theme, plugins, etc) in a different subdirectory. I’ve created a different database and user. I uploaded the wordpress files, went through installation, and then hit this error:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘.’ in mysite/public_html/wp2/wp-includes/user.php on line 1021

I’ve tried editing user.php, editing functions.php, and searching for any possible solutions – all nil. Does anyone have tricks to make this work??

Please help!!