When the foundation was complete, horse-drawn carts delivered girders, trusses, and other wrought-iron pieces from the workshops to the building site.
Base of a leg
People in the neighborhood had seen the four holes being dug. Now they could watch the actual tower rise. Small pieces of metal were riveted together into four perfectly placed iron legs. Men worked on wooden scaffolds that were made taller as the building grew.
When the legs were in place, they formed a 410-foot square. After that, it was time to build the first floor. This would be the tower’s base. It would look like a table with four legs. Once the base was in place, workers could build upward from floor to floor.
Small creeper cranes pulled trolleys filled with materials up tracks inside the four slanted legs. The tracks would later be used to move elevators full of visitors upward.
Soon, horizontal wrought-iron trusses were in place on top of the legs, joining them together. Column and platform pieces were hoisted and joined.
Workers spent longer and longer hours on the tower in order to meet the deadline. Canteens were installed on higher floors so they wouldn’t have to waste time climbing up and down the steps to eat their meals.
By April 1, 1888, the first floor was complete. Four and a half months later, the second floor was finished, and seven and a half months after that, on March 31, 1889, the final piece of the tower was riveted into place. Gustave and his workers had used over eighteen thousand pieces of iron and two and a half million rivets to hold everything together.
The tower was in place. It had taken two years, two months, and five days to construct the tallest structure in the world. Newspaper reporters were amazed at how fast it had gone up. They admired Gustave’s precise planning and his new, faster machines, like the hydraulic jacks and creeper cranes that had helped speed up construction.
It was dangerous work to build so high a structure. Yet not a single person died on the job. Sadly one worker climbed the tower at night when it was closed. He was showing off for his girlfriend, and he fell to his death.
CHAPTER 4
The Critics React
During the time the tower was constructed, buildings were growing taller all over the world. Big cities were running out of land. Tall buildings were the future. Wrought iron was the perfect material. It was easier to work with than stone.
The critics of the Eiffel Tower fumed. This was Paris, after all. A magnificent city built of beautiful stone.
No one protested as loudly as a group of painters, sculptors, architects, and writers. After seeing the plans for the tower, three hundred of them signed a protest against its construction. They called themselves the “Committee of Three Hundred,” named for the three-hundred-meter tower. Artists who signed included the composer Charles Gounod, the poet Paul Verlaine, the writer and playwright Alexandre Dumas Jr., and many others.
The protest was published in the Le Temps newspaper on February 14, 1887.
“Listen to our plea!
Imagine now a ridiculous tall tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black factory smokestack.”
Artists compared the tower to a streetlamp, a skeleton, and a factory pipe.
Guy de Maupassant
One of the most famous protestors was Guy de Maupassant, a writer who was well known for his short stories. He hated the tower so much that when it opened, he couldn’t bear to look at it. He decided to eat his lunch in one of the tower’s restaurants because that was the only place where he didn’t have to look at the tower itself. He later left France, saying he wanted to get away from the Eiffel Tower. He described it as, “This high and skinny pyramid of iron ladders, this giant ungainly skeleton upon a base that looks built to carry a colossal monument of Cyclops [a one-eyed monster], but which just peters out into a ridiculous thin shape like a factory chimney.”
Charles Garnier
There was also Charles Garnier, one of the most talented architects in France. Ten years earlier, Gustave and Charles had worked together on a rotating dome for an observatory in Nice, France. Gustave called it his favorite project at the time. The two men liked each other. Now Charles was Gustave’s harshest critic.
The observatory in Nice, France
Charles Garnier had designed the Paris Opera House, one of the most glorious stone buildings in the city. Completed in 1875, it was called the Palais Garnier, or the Opéra Garnier, after the man who created it. Theatergoers arriving in horse-drawn carriages were greeted by statues and gargoyles on the outside and a world of luxury on the inside: staircases and statues made from different shades of the finest marble, and domed ceilings with gilded moldings and magnificent art.
Most Parisians considered it a lavish, glittering masterpiece.
Eiffel’s simple wrought-iron tower was as different from Garnier’s landmark as a candlestick from a chandelier.
Besides finding metal buildings ugly, Garnier was mad. The ridiculous tower was going to dwarf something he had designed for the fair. His Exposition of Human Habitation was located directly below the Eiffel Tower. It consisted of forty-nine different kinds of homes, from palaces to huts, to show how people around the world lived.
Exposition of Human Habitation
As Garnier continued to seethe about the tower, many other critics changed their minds. Once inside, they were able to study the artistic details of the lattice ironwork. They could stand at the top and take in the panoramic view of Paris. They noticed how the light moved in and out of the spaces between the girders. How could they have been so wrong? they wondered. Mr. Eiffel’s tower wasn’t a monstrosity at all. It was a brilliant work of art!
CHAPTER 5
The Tower Is Open
On May 15, 1889, the Eiffel Tower officially opened to the public. Gustave Eiffel was the first to sign the guest book: “Ten minutes to twelve, May 15, 1889. The tower is opened to the public. At last!”
Thousands bought tickets. Gustave had paid for most of the construction himself—about $36 million in today’s money. The line of ticket-buyers meant the tower would be a success. In fact, Gustave earned all his money back in less than a year.
Because of still-unfinished elevators, the crowds trudged up the iron stairs. They felt the wind blowing harder as they climbed higher. They noticed the engraved names of seventy-two important French scientists, mathematicians, and engineers, and the names of the 199 men who had worked on the tower.
In a tiny office on the second level, Le Figaro, a popular newspaper, set up a printing press. Their daily newsletter would cover news from the tower. The names of visitors in the guest book would also be published in the paper.
Nearby, visitors could send messages from the new telegraph office.
The Washington Monument
Most people praised the tower, but some American visitors had mixed feelings about this new landmark. They were in awe of it, but they were also bothered. Until then, the 555-foot Washington Monument, in Washington, DC, had been the tallest structure in the world. This new iron tower was almost twice as tall.
In his office on the third level, Gustave was frustrated. He couldn’t stop thinking about the elevator problem. From the very beginning, he had been in charge of every detail of the tower, but he had needed the Otis company to build and install the elevators. There was no way around it. A one-thousand-foot building would, of course, require elevators to carry visitors to the top.
Most tall buildings include elevators that move straight up and down. But Gustave had always wanted something more unusual for his visitors. He wanted them to see and admire every one of the eighteen thousand pieces of iron in his masterpiece.
After a great deal of thought, he had decided that he needed two sets of elevators. They would look like glass cages. One set would move straight up two of the legs to the first level. The secon
d set of elevators would travel on a curve up the other two legs from the ground to the second, much higher level. At this point, visitors would then have to change to a final elevator that would carry them the rest of the way.
Now the elevators had finally been installed, but the safety tests hadn’t been performed. Gustave wondered if anyone would ever be able to ride to the top of his beloved creation.
At last, two weeks after the Eiffel Tower’s official opening, a test was done on the elevators’ safety brakes. What would happen if the cables broke? Would the safety brakes stop the elevators from falling? Would the elevators’ glass walls shatter?
Representatives from the Otis Elevator Company had sailed from America to join Gustave for the test. Reporters gathered to watch.
A rope replaced the steel cable. The elevator was filled with lead instead of people. It was time. Everyone waited.
A carpenter raised his hatchet. He cut the rope. The elevator dropped. It swung back and forth. It jerked. It stopped.
The safety brakes held. The elevator had passed its final test. It was ready for visitors.
Finally, in June, the five hydraulic elevators were moving up and down the tower.
As the elevators rose, visitors could look out through the top halves made of glass. They could see Gustave Eiffel’s office, where he welcomed visitors.
Three months later, Thomas Edison paid him a visit. He brought a gift, one of the first phonographs ever used in Europe. It is still in Gustave Eiffel’s office to this day.
At the top, visitors could send letters and postcards from a small post office. They could see a blue, white, and red beacon light that moved across the sky. A cannon that boomed at the beginning and end of the fair each day was up there, too.
The view of Paris was spectacular. Few people had ever seen land from such a height. Some balloonists had risen higher. Some people had climbed taller mountains. But there were no airplanes, so no one had flown. Visitors were amazed as they looked down. Everything on the ground seemed so small.
Gustave had always been interested in weather. So shortly after the tower opened, he installed a small weather station at the top. From there, he was able to measure temperature, wind speed, rain, and snow. The day’s weather was announced in Le Figaro’s daily tower newspaper.
Now that his tower was finished, Gustave could sit in his office and think about what he had accomplished. The fair below was up and running. He had created the perfect entrance. He felt proud.
CHAPTER 6
The Fair Below
Down below, most of the exhibitions were finally up and running. More than 61,000 exhibitors displayed products and artwork, and performed music, dance, and theater. Although they came from all over the world, more than half of the exhibitors were from France or French colonies.
French Colonies
A colony is a country or area that is ruled by another country, usually one that is bigger and far away. America was one of Great Britain’s colonies until the colonists fought the Revolutionary War and won their freedom.
In 1889, France controlled many distant countries. Each was very different and had its own culture. This fair was their chance to show the world how they ate, dressed, and lived.
The French colonial expositions were located in the Esplanade des Invalides, up the river from the Eiffel Tower. Visitors were given a ticket called the “magic carpet” that allowed them to experience cultures from all over the world.
Actors from Indochina, now called Vietnam, put on a show. Dancers from Java performed native dances. Workers and performers lived in villages with houses like the ones in distant Tahiti and Senegal.
But the 1889 fair was not just about the French and their colonies. Beautiful tiles adorned a Tunisian palace. Algerians were at work, embroidering slippers and weaving baskets. Egyptian donkeys pulled carts. There was even a working English dairy where cows gave fresh milk. Visitors could watch Devonshire cream being made and eat delicious homemade ice cream at small tables.
One of the most admired exhibitions was a huge model of the earth, accurately scaled to size. With a diameter of forty-two feet, it was exactly one-millionth the size of the earth. Like the fair itself, this rotating globe was meant to introduce visitors to the world as a whole. Perfectly measured countries, cities, bodies of water, mountains, shipping routes, telegraph lines, and a variety of geographical facts were painted on the outside.
Visitors were especially excited to see the American exhibits. Thomas Edison’s electric lights glittered everywhere. Otis elevators carried passengers to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Now visitors could learn about American culture as well. They could view the newest art from the 255 American painters exhibiting at the fair. Many were especially excited to see the much-talked-about portraits by John Singer Sargent, who would win a medal of honor at the medal ceremony on September 29.
And everyone wanted to try out the telephone display! Alexander Graham Bell had invented the telephone thirteen years earlier, but long-distance calling was still in the future. People wondered what it would sound like. Inside the exhibit, visitors found a line of telephones on one wall. Miles away, at the Paris Opera House, telephone receivers were broadcasting live music. The concert could be heard through the phones, all the way across the city. It was incredible!
But everyone, it seemed, couldn’t wait to see Thomas Edison’s newest inventions. His exhibit was inside the beautiful fifteen-acre glass-and-steel Gallery of Machines. Hurrying into the gallery, visitors were surrounded by electric lights that blinked, buzzed, and fizzled. Pumps shuddered and thumped. Engines pounded and clanked.
Some people stopped to inspect the new machines, but most rushed to try out Edison’s phonograph. Earphones were passed from visitor to visitor. Each person was allowed three minutes to listen to the national anthems of France and the United States.
But America didn’t just bring inventions and art. They also brought Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley. On the other side of the river, beyond the Louvre Museum, Buffalo Bill Cody was putting on his very popular Wild West show.
During the 1800s, Americans had been moving west. Before the first cross-country railroad was completed in 1869, pioneers traveled in covered wagons. Many American Indian tribes hunted buffalo. Mail was delivered by the Pony Express, on horseback or in wagons. The western plains were wild and dangerous.
In a Paris amphitheater, Buffalo Bill’s touring show re-created the Wild West—or at least the Wild West as white Americans liked to picture it.
Plains Indians riding bareback did battle with Pony Express messengers. Led by Buffalo Bill, cowboys on horseback shouted and raised their rifles as they raced to save the passengers on the wagon train. Annie Oakley, the show’s world-famous five-foot-tall sharpshooter, demonstrated why she was known as “Little Sure Shot.” She was able to shoot a cigar out of her husband’s mouth!
That night, as visitors on both sides of the Seine left the fairground, they stopped and looked up. The tower was blazing with light. The spotlight was spinning colors through the sky. The fountains below it were dancing.
In September, officials agreed to keep the fair open for an extra week. It would close exactly three months after it opened. The 1889 Exposition Universelle had been a huge success.
CHAPTER 7
What Can You Do with a Tower?
Paris officials wanted to take down the tower when the fair closed. That had been the plan from the start. The city owned the land it was built on, and the city wanted it back. Gustave, on the other hand, hoped the tower would stand forever.
An agreement was finally signed. His tower could remain where it was until 1909. That was better, but not good enough for Gustave. He now had twenty years to figure out how to make the tower a permanent landmark, one that would stand for hundreds of years.
Gustave soon came up with a plan. At that time, people used telegraphs to send mess
ages long distances over land. At sea, ships in trouble used Morse code. Messages were carried through wires and cables under the ocean.
But something new was happening. An inventor named Guglielmo Marconi was working on a way to send messages long distances through the air on radio waves. His invention did not use wires. Messages would be transmitted and received using an antenna.
Wireless radio waves fascinated Gustave. He had been using his tower to conduct weather experiments. Why not use it to experiment with radio waves?
Gustave worked hard. He brought in an inventor named Eugène Ducretet to help. They raised an antenna above the third floor. Finally, on November 5, 1898, a signal was sent from the tower and picked up at the Panthéon, about three miles away. Still, Paris officials insisted the tower had to be taken down in 1909.
Gustave was desperate. How could he convince the officials to let his tower stand? Hadn’t they been impressed with his radio work?
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