Valencia-born architect Rafael Guastavino (1842-1908) left Spain for the United States in 1881. Once there, he discovered a great opportunity for introducing the Catalan or timbrel vault, a traditional Spanish system that he patented and improved upon. Thanks to the system’s advantages (it was economical, lightweight and fireproof) his company, led by himself and then by his son and lasting until 1962, worked in association with the leading American architectural firms and carried out the construction of nearly one thousand buildings all over the United States; among these, more than 200 were in New York. These include some as remarkable as Grand Central Station, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the City Hall, the Ellis Island immigrant station and the Federal Reserve Bank.