HOLIDAY-ISH: National Eiffel Tower Day
The Eifel Tower beams brightly over Paris. (Payton Martin)
Each year on March 31st we look back at the first date of one of the most famous landmarks we know, The Effel Tower.
In 1887 a group of architects named Stephen Sauvestre, Emile Nouguier, and Maurice Koechlin had begun the first official starting date of the largest attraction, The Eiffel Tower.
The first layout of the tower was finished in 1885 and was approved to start constructing the tower in 1887.
The actual story behind the Eiffel Tower all starts in a drawing competition. Gustave Eiffel was one of the 100’s of contestants competing on who could make the best design in honor of the French Revolution. The tower would be more than 1,000 ft. Gustave handed in a resume where he also included the Statue of Liberty to help conceive the architects to fully approve the process.
Yet the tower couldn’t be a better idea it still rose controversy among artists. There were complaints that there was no way this is going to be any easy process, but isn’t that obvious? The construction of course would’ve lead to many doubtful comments where it grew as a long held debate in France.
Gustave Eiffel made a comparison of his tower to the Egyptian Pyramids. The reality behind this is the height contrast. As we know the pyramids were known for being a tall man-made structure back in the late 2000’s B.C. Gustave wanted to prove that his tower was going to ‘wow’ people in the height.
When the tower was then finished it put people in awe, or hate. The disputation was real while as said before, artists disagreement, had still been a problem even when the tower was completed because people were still putting doubt against the building.
Besides the arguments and protests the tower is still remaining to this day with over 300 million visitors since day 1! The Eiffel Tower has become one of the main attractions in Paris, with many things to offer. If you happen to look closely their are names engraved onto a small section of the tower in remembrance of the hard work that was put in to make this as successful as possible.
Overall the sightseeing is beautiful with too many places you can overlook the tower and how much dedication was put into this. Every contributor deserves appreciation for the hard work because it for sure paid off. In my opinion I think that the sparkling lights were the best touch.
