Source: NY Daily Graphic 15 Jan 1883
The above is a picture of an apartment house or private residence for bachelors which has recently been erected on the plot of land. Nos. 288 to 232 West Forty-second street, and is known as " The Percival." The structure was designed by and built under the supervision of the noted architects, McKim, Mead and White, who seem to have exhausted all the resources of their craft in their efforts to make it as perfect as possible, and according to the orders of the owner to spare no expense in making the building complete and attractive in every way. The building is five stories high, of brick and stone and has a frontage of 75 feet on Forty-second street and is 65 feet in depth, and there is a large sunny yard in the rear. Its interior, arrangements are admirable in every particular having forty suites of apartments, each suite comprising sitting-room, bedroom and bathroom, finished plainly and substantially and the floors are three inches thick, of Georgia pine, laid in narrow strips and deadened.
The plumbing was done by contract, given to the highest bidder, and in excess of reguirements of the Board of Health, and has been pronounced as a masterly piece of thorough sanitary and artistic plumbing, each trap being ventilated to the roof. Open fireplaces are in most of the rooms, also speaking tubes and electric bells to the Superintendent's office. The building is heated by steam, and an elevator will run day and night.
The cooking arrangements are in the basement, and breakfast can be served by the Superintendent to the tenants in their rooms. Picture strips are on all the walls, and there is a private staircase for servants, and also a lift for coal, trunks etc, and a closet is provided in the cellar for each suite of rooms for coal, wood, etc, and a trunk room for storage at the top of the bouse. Gas fixtures will be placed throughout. The rooms are let unfurnished, from year to year, all leases expiring out the first day of October, and service is included in the rent.
In short, the Percival offers all the comforts and attractions that are possible to those who have to live in lodgings, as it has the refinement and good service of a private house with the freedom of a hotel; and being altogether a well arranged building, should be seen by those bachelors who desire to live quietly and comfortably. The situation is convenient, being near Broadway and within two or three blocks of the St. Cloud and Rossmore hotels, the Sixth and Ninth avenue Elevated stations, the Casino and Alcazar, Delmonico's and the Brunswick, right in the heart of the city.
234 West 42nd Street – 1924 – Photograph by Wurts Bros. (New York, N.Y.) - From the Collections of the Museum of the City of New York
(The above mis-labled I think as 234 W 42nd Street unless new street numbers assigned over time for the Percival Apartments, scraped in this 1924 photo of the previous McKim, Mead & Whites designed exterior decorative work.)
Later life of the building as a night club. http://www.jazzageclub.com/the-magnificent-murrays-roman-gardens/453/
.
