ABSTRACT
The most famous and oldest of them is the Oyster Bar and Restaurant, designed and built by the firm of Rafael Guastavino and Company. To understand the originality of the attraction the Oyster Bar developed, it is necessary to learn more about the contribution Rafael Guastavino’s firm made to American architecture at the end of the nineteenth century. The legendary durability of Guastavino vaults was put to the test in 1997, when fire struck the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Terminal. Towards the Vanderbilt Avenue side that runs parallel to Fifth Avenue, one reaches the main entrance to the Oyster Bar on the long side of the rectangular room. The total space is subdivided into four different spaces, the dark-panelled Saloon, the restaurant, the sit-down counter area and the Oyster Bar itself with its famed offer of thirty varieties of oysters and about eighty wine selections by the glass.
