EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD
Most advances in architecture and engineering are incremental. If, for instance, you wanted to build the world’s first 10-story building, you’d expect to study the construction techniques of 8-and 9-story buildings first.
But Gustave Eiffel didn’t have that luxury. No one had ever built an iron tower like his of any size…let alone one that was twice as tall as the tallest building on earth.
AN ENGINEERING GENIUS
To accomplish his task, Eiffel devised some incredibly ingenious techniques:
• Unlike other massive engineering projects of the day, he had nearly all of the parts used in the tower prefabricated off-site in his workshops. This meant that when they arrived at the tower, the parts could be quickly riveted into place with a minimum of fuss.
• The rivet holes themselves were predrilled to a tolerance of one-tenth of one millimeter, making it possible for the twenty riveting teams to drive an average of 1,650 rivets a day.
• None of the girders used in the tower was permitted to weigh more than three tons. This made it possible to use smaller cranes to lift everything into place. As Joseph Harris writes in The Tallest Tower:
Eiffel had learned that using small components was faster and safer, even if this method did require more riveting, for cranes could be smaller and more mobile. The chances of accidents were reduced, and if one did occur the consequences were less serious. Use of bigger girders would have slowed the entire operation and required more expensive and complicated construction methods.
Roadrunners only run at a top speed of 15 mph.
Thanks to these and other safety measures, the Eiffel Tower—the world’s tallest construction site—was also one of the safest. Of the hundreds of people who worked on the tower, only one, a riveter’s assistant named Dussardin, fell to his death.
THE PIERS
In the early days of the project, there were actually four construction sites at the Eiffel Tower, one for each foot, or “pier.” These piers did not join together until the 180-foot level…and once this point was reached, they had to be set perfectly level with one another to create a perfectly horizontal platform on which the remaining 800 feet of the tower could be built. If the piers were even slightly out of alignment, the tiniest discrepancy at the base of the tower would be magnified at the top: it would appear to lean.
Eiffel knew there was no way he could guarantee the piers would be vertical when finished—the margin for error was too great. So he installed temporary hydraulic pistons in the base of each of the feet. That way, as work on the tower progressed, he could “finetune” the entire tower into perfect alignment by slightly raising or lowering each foot. When the tower was properly aligned, workers could drive iron wedges into the piers to secure them permanently.
As it turned out, Eiffel had little to worry about. Even at the 180-foot level, the worst of the four massive piers was less than 2 1/2 inches out of alignment. All four were easily adjusted and secured in place. Even today, the tower is perfectly vertical.
FINIS
The Eiffel Tower was a marvel—not just for its ingenuity of design, but also because it was completed ahead of schedule and under budget. The Exposition was scheduled to open on May 6; work on the tower was finished on March 31.
Eiffel & Company earned back its money in record time. During the six months of the Exposition alone, the tower earned back more than $1.4 million of its $1.6 million construction cost; that, combined with the $300,000 subsidy provided by the French government, pushed the tower into the black even before the Exposition closed.
Average wage for the workmen who dug the Erie canal: $1 and one quart of whiskey per day.
The tower was such a magnificent structure that it won over many of its earlier critics. Among them was French prime minister Tirard. He had opposed the project at its inception, but awarded Eiffel the medal of the Legion of Honor after it was finished. The tower, a symbol of France’s unrivaled technical expertise, became the symbol of France itself.
Not everyone who hated the tower experienced a change of heart. Guy de Maupassant, the novelist best known for The Necklace, was said to eat regularly at a restaurant on the tower’s second floor. His reason: It was the only place in Paris where he was sure he wouldn’t see the tower. (Even some of the characters in his novels hated the tower.)
TOWER FACTS
• Every seven years, the Eiffel Tower receives a fresh coat of more than 300 tons of reddish-green paint. Why reddish-green? Because, tower officials say, it is the color that clashes least with the blue sky over Paris, and the green landscape of the Champ de Mars below.
• The positions of the Eiffel Tower’s four “feet” correspond to the “cardinal” points of a compass: they point exactly north, south, west, and east.
• In 1925 the City of Paris wanted to decorate the tower with electric lights as part of an arts exposition being held nearby, but the cost, estimated at $500,000, was too high. When automaker Andre Citroën learned of the project, he offered to pay for it himself…in exchange for the right to put his company name and corporate symbol in lights as well. The City agreed. “The Eiffel Tower,” Blake Ehrlich writes in Paris on the Seine, “became the world’s largest electric sign, its outlines traced in lights.” The lights were so popular that the tower remained lit with various designs until 1937.
• Sad fact: The Eiffel Tower is the most popular landmark for suicides in France. In an average year, four people commit suicide by jumping off the tower or, occasionally, by hanging themselves from its wrought iron beams. The first person killed in a jump from the tower, in 1911, was not an intentional suicide—the man was a tailor named Teichelt who had sewn himself a “spring-loaded bat-wing cape” that he thought would enable him to fly. It didn’t.
The Vatican City pharmacy sells birth control pills…but only to non-Catholic married women.
THE FIRST CENTERFOLD
Whether you approve of the magazine or not, Playboy represents a significant part of American culture. One of its trademarks is the centerfold. Here’s the tale of the first one.
THE BARE FACTS
In the late 1940s, Marilyn Monroe was still an unknown actress, struggling to pay rent. One day in 1948 she borrowed a car to get to an audition, but had an accident on the way. As by-standers gathered, she announced she was late for an appointment and had no money for a cab. Tom Kelley, a photographer—gave her $5 and his business card.
A year later when Marilyn needed money, she went to Kelley’s studio to ask if he had any work for her. He did—he was doing a photo shoot for a poster advertising Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer and his model had failed to show up. Marilyn happily stepped in and took the job.
A few weeks later Kelley called Monroe with more work. A Chicago calendar manufacturer named John Baumgarth had seen the Pabst poster and wanted a few “tasteful” nude pinup shots.
According to Anthony Spoto in Marilyn:
[She] accepted at once. Two nights later she returned to Kelley’s studio and signed a release form as “Mona Monroe.”
A red velvet drape was spread on the studio floor, and for two hours Marilyn posed nude, moving easily from one position to another as the photographer, perched ten feet above her on a ladder, clicked away.
Baumgarth paid Kelley $500 for all rights to the photos from the session, and Kelley gave Marilyn $50. They never met again.
PIN-UP GIRL
Baumgarth did nothing with the photos until 1950, when Marilyn began to get attention for her role in The Asphalt Jungle. He decided to use her picture on a pinup calendar. It was only meant to be a giveaway for service stations, tool dealers, contractors, etc. But in April 1952, Life magazine included a tiny reproduction of the calendar in a cover story they did on Marilyn. As a result, the picture became world-famous. And Marilyn became infamous.
Personal note: JJ loves SJ
“Marilyn blunted the potential effect on her career,” says Spoto, “by giving interviews in whi
ch she explained that she had desperately needed money. The public bought it. But the saga of the pinup calendar wasn’t over.”
PUBLIC EXPOSURE
Just as the furor surrounding Marilyn’s pinup shot was dying down, Baumgarth got a visit from a fellow Chicagoan who wanted to use it. According to Russell Miller in Bunny, the Real Story of Playboy:
Because of the risk of prosecution for obscenity, Baumgarth believed there was probably no other use to which the pictures could be put. He was surprised, therefore, when [a young man] showed up at his office, without an appointment, on the morning of June 13, 1953, and asked if he could buy the rights to publish the Monroe nude pictures in a magazine he was planning to launch.
The man was Hugh Hefner; the magazine was Stag Party (soon to be renamed Playboy). Baumgarth not only sold Hefner the magazine rights, but threw in the color separations as well—which saved the struggling Hefner—who’d barely scraped up enough money for the 48-page first issue—a bundle.
Hefner knew his magazine was finally on its way. Monroe—featured that year in How to Marry a Millionaire—was now a star. And Hefner could announce that she would be his first “centerfold.” In December 1953, the premiere issue of Playboy hit the stands, with Marilyn beckoning from the front cover. Due in part to the famous pinup, Playboy was an instant success. Ironically, this exposure made the photos even more famous…and more valuable. Spoto concludes:
More than any other portraits of a nude woman in the history of photography, those of Marilyn Monroe taken in 1949 became virtual icons, everywhere recognizable, ever in demand. Landmarks in the union of art with commerce, the photographs have appeared in calendars, playing cards, keychains, pens, clothing, accessories, linens and household items; for decades, entrepreneurs have become wealthy by claiming or purchasing rights to their dissemination.
Every three months, you replace your eyelashes.
THE ACME ANTI-CASTRO SPY KIT
Like the Coyote and Road Runner, the CIA was obsessively trying to kill Fidel Castro in the 1960s. But like Coyote, they just couldn’t seem do it. Was it because Castro was so wily... or because the CIA was so incompetent? Here are some examples of how the anti-Castro super-spies spent their time (and our money).
CONCOCTING WEIRD PLOTS
Seven plots against Castro that the CIA actually considered.
1. Use agents in Cuba to spread rumors that the second coming of Christ is imminent and that Castro is the anti-Christ.
2. Surprise him at the beach with an exploding conch shell.
3. Put thalium salts in his shoes or cigars during an appearance on “The David Susskind Show,” to make his beard and hair fall out.
4. Put itching powder in his scuba suit and LSD on his mouthpiece so he would be driven crazy and drown.
5. Offer him exploding cigars designed to blow his head off.
6. Shoot him with a TV camera that has a machine gun inside.
7. Spray his broadcasting studio with hallucinogens.
EMBARGOING BASEBALLS
In its war against Fidel Castro during the 1960s, the CIA literally tried to play hardball politics. “The CIA tried to cut off the supply of baseballs to Cuba. Agents persuaded suppliers in other countries not to ship them. (U.S. baseballs were already banned by the trade embargo the U.S. had declared.)” The bizarre embargo was effective. Some balls got through, “but the supply was so limited that the government had to ask fans to throw foul balls and home runs back onto the field for continued play.”
—Jonathan Kwitny, Endless Enemies
Hey, men! What hair grows fastest? Your beard.
CONSULTING JAMES BOND
How out-of-control was the CIA in its anti-Castro frenzy? They even took Ian Fleming’s jokes seriously. This anecdote from Deadly Secrets, by Warren Hinkle and William Turner, says it all.
“It was, even by Georgetown standards, one helluva dinner party. It was the spring of 1960. The hosts were Senator and Mrs. John F. Kennedy. The guest of honor was John Kennedy’s favorite author, Ian Fleming.
“Kennedy asked Fleming what his man James Bond might do if M. assigned him to get rid of Castro. Fleming had been in British intelligence….He was quick to answer. According to his biographer, John Pearson, Fleming thought he would have himself some fun….
“[He] said there were three things which really mattered to the Cubans—money, religion, and sex. Therefore, he suggested a triple whammy. First the United States should send planes to scatter [counterfeit] Cuban money over Havana. Second, using the Guantanamo base, the United States should conjure up some religious manifestation, say, a cross of sorts in the sky which would induce the Cubans to look constantly skyward. And third, the United States should send planes over Cuba dropping pamphlets to the effect that owing to American atom bomb tests the atmosphere over the island had become radioactive; that radioactivity is held longest in beards, and that radioactivity makes men impotent. As a consequence the Cubans would shave off their beards, and without bearded Cubans there would be no revolution.
“Fleming was staying at the house of British newsman Henry Brandon. The next day CIA director Allen Dulles called Brandon to speak to Fleming. Brandon said his guest had already left Washington. Dulles expressed great regret. He had heard about Fleming’s terrific ideas for doing in Castro and was sorry he wouldn’t be able to discuss them with him in person.
“It is testimony to the resounding good sense exercised by the CIA during the Secret War that all three of Fleming’s spoof ideas were in one form or another attempted—or at least seriously considered.”
Average annual beard growth: 5 1/2 inches. That’s about 30 feet in a lifetime.
FAMOUS FOR 15 MINUTES
Here’s another installment of our feature based on Andy Warhol’s comment that “in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes”
THE STAR: Shawn Christopher Ryan, 7-year-old resident of Castro Valley, California
THE HEADLINE: Second-Grader Smells Smoke, Saves Sixteen
WHAT HAPPENED: At 4 a.m. on February 9, 1984, Shawn awoke and smelled smoke. He ran into his mother’s room, saw that her mattress had caught fire (she’d fallen asleep smoking), and woke her up. He helped her escape, then ran back into the apartment building and knocked on every door, waking up and saving all 16 neighbors. For a few weeks, he was a national hero. He was honored at the state capitol by the governor of California, received a commendation from President Reagan, and was lauded on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.
AFTERMATH: Ryan wasn’t in the news again until 1995, eleven years later. Ironically, it was because he had pled guilty to the murder of two acquaintances (alleged drug dealers) while they were all high on methamphetamine. “I can’t explain it,” he said. “I’m not the kind of person to take a life, not for any reason.” He was sentenced to 32 years in prison.
THE STAR: Diane King, a 33-year-old night-shift manager at a Portland, Oregon, Taco Bell
THE HEADLINE: Good Samaritan Gets Heave-ho from Taco Bell
WHAT HAPPENED: On August, 16, 1995, a fight broke out in a Taco Bell parking lot, leaving one teenager dead and one lying motionless in the street. King, a former nurse’s aide, rushed to help. She left another employee in charge of the restaurant, even though she knew it was against company policy. Later, she explained, “I was worried he might die out there.” When the police arrived, she went back to work. A few weeks later, she was fired. Newspapers reported the story as an example of both corporate insensitivity and a screwed-up society that discourages good samaritans.
Nutritional fact: There are more places to buy candy in the U.S. than there are places to buy bread.
AFTERMATH: Hundreds of people offered King jobs and money. People magazine ran a story on the incident. Oprah Winfrey flew King to Chicago for a show titled “Would You Help a Stranger in Distress?” Finally, Taco Bell—which had tried to reinstate King without admitting it had done anything wrong (she refused)—ran a full-page apology in the Portland Oregon
ian. “Sometimes big corporations make mistakes,” it said. “In this case, we did, and we’ve learned from it.” King ignored them and took a job at a convenience store. She also filed a $149,500 suit against Taco Bell for “shock, outrage, and emotional distress.” No word on the outcome.
THE STAR: Nicholas Daniloff, Moscow bureau chief for U.S. News and World Report
THE HEADLINE: U.S. Reporter Held Hostage by Soviets
WHAT HAPPENED: In 1986 Gennadi Zakharov, a member of the Soviet Union’s mission to the United Nations, was arrested in New York for spying. A few weeks later, the Soviets retaliated, arresting Daniloff in Moscow and charging him with espionage—with a possible death penalty. His arrest was front-page news. President Reagan and Secretary of State Schultz called it “an outrage,” but swore they’d never trade a spy (Zakharov) for a hostage (Daniloff). The matter was so serious that it jeopardized the upcoming Summit meeting in Iceland between Reagan and Gorbachev. The United States even announced it was expelling 25 members of the Soviet delegation to the U.N. because they worked for the KGB.
Some fancy maneuvering followed. Daniloff was released. The United States waited awhile (so it didn’t seem like there was any connection), then released Zakharov in exchange for a Russian dissident and allowed some of the expelled U.N. workers to stay. Daniloff was welcomed home…but a day after his release, he was already old news. The Reagan administration changed the subject. Their new focus—it was to avoid scrutiny of the deal they’d made, political pundits suggested—was details of the Summit meeting.
AFTERMATH: Daniloff surfaced again in 1988 when he toured the country promoting his autobiography, Two Lives, One Russia (published on the second anniversary of his imprisonment). He became a professor at Northeastern University in Boston and a respected expert on Russia.
Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader Page 39