Top of the Eiffel Tower - 65 by 65 Project Update
The Eiffel Tower, located in the Champs de Mars in Paris, France was designed to be the entrance arch for 1889 World's Fair. Now considered to be one of the most romantic places in the world, it is also the most visited paid monument in the world, the design project was originally fought by artists and architects alike. Petitions were signed and sent to the Minister of Works and Commissioner for the Exposition, and it was published by Le Temps on 14 February 1887.
"We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection ... of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower ... To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years ... we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal."
Built by Gustav Eiffel and his company, the structure was completed with the exception of the lifts. The first group of government officials and press representatives were welcomed to visit the Eiffel Tower on Mar 31st, 1889. Most went as far as the first two floors, with a few brave souls climbing the 324 meters to the top.