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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.
... (1992 of 6853 Characters)
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