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Happy Birthday, Grande Dame!
| Article
# : |
16001 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1989 |
1,127 Words |
| Author
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William Joseph Miller
William Joseph Miller teaches English at Washington
Preparatory High School in Los Angeles. |
Once considered a metallic carcass, a modern Tower of Babel, a hideous inkblot, or a hardware store in the sky, the Eiffel Tower has since become the superstar of Paris.
One hundred years ago the idea of a tower nearly a thousand feet tall, piercing the azure sky like a flaming arrow, was unfathomable. Today it would be impossible to imagine Paris, or even France, without it.
Originally conceived of as the centerpiece for the Exposition Universelle de Paris of 1889, the Eiffel Tower immediately inspired controversy. Local landowners filed lawsuits, fearing the tower would crumple and bury their property under thousands of tons of debris. Prominent artists complained about the tower's lack of aesthetics and filed petitions demanding its quick demolition.
But now, like all superstars, the Eiffel Tower has legions of admirers--more than three million people visit it every year. In fact, the image of the Eiffel Tower, rising like a moon goddess amid the eerily illuminated fountains of the Paris de Chaillot, has provoked a kind of lunacy.
Eiffelmaniacs have sculpted miniature Eiffel Towers out of such diverse materials as eggs, sugar, ice, chocolate, spaghetti, foie gras, Lego bricks, pastry dough, and matchsticks, as well as gold, silver, and diamonds. A museum would be needed to house all the bizarre mementos that have appeared in the form of the Eiffel Tower, including thermometers, perfume bottles, kerosene lamps, cameras, and pepper mills.
Inspiring zany articles
The Eiffel Tower has inspired an endless number of zany antics, each vying for the title of Most Bizarre. Eiffelmaniacs have raced up its stairways on stilts and unicycles, and the self-proclaimed "Mayor of Montmartre" coasted down the stairs on a bicycle. In what was probably the strangest race in history, contestants had to run up the stairway carrying a hundred-pound bag of cement.
Gymnasts have shinnied up the sides of the tower's crossbars, and mountaineers have scaled its flanks. Stunt fliers have tried to fly between the tower's massive 180-foot arches, though one pilot lost his life in the attempt. Cows and elephants have climbed the tower, and bears from the Moscow Circus have staked around an ice rink installed on its first
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