During the Civil War, it was used as an military observatory and headquarters of the republican army's telecommunications, the reason why it was often targeted. A part of its basement was also used as a air-raid shelter.
It was also the headquarters of the Foreign Press Office: Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos and many foreign war correspondents settled there to send their accounts.
An important fire in the basement of this building destroyed in 1970 a considerable amount of the archived stocked there.
In 1983, the movie director Woody Allen showed the building in a scene of his movie "Zelig".
As in many iconic buildings, rumors give this edifice a mysterious look: Goyito, the ghost of an elderly man, arrayed with an eyeglass and a cane, would be living on the ninth floor...