eyeing the eiffel

the world’s tallest tower held that title from 1889 — the year it was finally finished — to 1930, when the chrysler building decided to pop its head up in new york. the funny thing is, the eiffel wasn’t even supposed to be around that long. it had a 20-year permit and was to be dismantled by 1909. its height came to its aid though, making it perfect for communication purposes. by the time two decades had rolled past, people were more than used to seeing it standing tall, so it was allowed to stay.

considering how proud the french now are of the tower, it’s hard to imagine how much they hated it when it first sprang up. citizens across the country wrote letters of complaint to newspapers, calling the eiffel an ‘eyesore’. one letter — signed by heavyweights like academic painter bouguereau and writer alexandre dumas, among others — cribbed about ‘the odious shadow of the odious column built up of riveted iron plates’. and yet, by 1996, 167664439 people had lined up to see the odious column in question.

a few fast facts: the eiffel stands tall at 1052 feet and weighs 7,000 tonnes. it consumes 50 tonnes of dark brown paint every 7 years. visitors can walk up 704 of its steps. the maximum it sways in a strong wind is 12 centimetres. it took 2 years, 2 months and 5 days — from january 1887 to march 1889 — to be constructed, and was inaugurated on march 31, 1889. it takes 2,500,000 rivets to keep the structure in place. on the tower are engraved the names of 72 french engineers, scientists and other notable folk.