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48 Comments
- roostersheep, on 05/15/2009, -0/+38"It's more expensive than the one in Las Vegas."
Well I don't know about you guys but I'm just shocked that the smaller replica costs less.
/I don't like the sarcasm tag. - atgmac, on 05/15/2009, -0/+20I have to click "Read more" for around 15 more words? And it's on 10 pages? ***** that.
# It suffers from shrinkage.
Not counting its antenna, the iron tower is about 984 feet tall. But on cold days it’s roughly 6 inches shorter.
# The paint is wet.
Or at least some of it is.
Twenty-five workers began brushwork in March on a top-to-bottom repainting job that’s expected to take 18 months. When done, they will have applied 60 tons of paint in three shades of brown (darkest at the bottom, lightest at the top).
The tower needs repainting every seven years, and it hasn’t always been brown.
For a brief spell in 1899, the tower was painted ochre yellow. And from 1954 to 1961, it was brownish red, a bit like the Golden Gate Bridge.
# It wasn’t Eiffel’s only big-ticket gig.
By the time engineer and architect Gustave Eiffel began building the tower for the Exposition Universelle of 1889, he had already put up more than 50 bridges in Europe.
He was also a key part of the French effort to build a canal in Panama — an effort that fell through. (Americans redesigned the project and finished the job about 35 years later.)
The tower, meanwhile, took about two years to build, with completion March 31, 1889, several weeks ahead of the exposition’s opening day.
# It would make a fine billboard. In fact, it already has.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, three of its sides held vast advertisements for Citroen cars. While occupying Paris during World War II, German troops hung a sign from the tower trumpeting their victory. In 1979, a Greenpeace protester unfurled a sign that said “Save the Seals.”
_A company called Apoteo Surprise will flash a personal message under the Eiffel Tower — for a price._
# It outdraws New York's Empire State Building (pictured), big time.
From 2003 to 2008, the Parisian tower’s annual visitor count grew from 5.9 million to 6.9 million. (The Empire State Building’s operators report “more than 3.5 million” visitors a year.)
The Paris tower is open every day and includes two restaurants. Summer hours are 9 a.m. to 12:45 a.m.
# It’s more expensive than the one in Las Vegas.
Through March 26, 2010, the cost of an elevator trip to the top of the real Eiffel Tower is 13 euros for an adult. (That’s about $17.25, by current foreign exchange rates.)
Cost of the Eiffel Tower Experience at Paris Las Vegas in Las Vegas: $10 for an adult.
And no, you can’t climb to the top of the tower in Paris. (It’s 1,665 steps, or maybe 1,671, depending on who’s counting.) Also, wheelchair users aren’t allowed at the top.
# Even before it was done, some French big shots decided it was barbarous, stupefying and odious.
In 1887, as construction began, composer Charles Gounod, writer Guy de Maupassant, painter William Bouguereau, architect Charles Garnier and scores of other sensitive French creative types signed a petition in protest, labeling the tower “useless and monstrous ... a gigantic black factory chimney, its barbarous mass overwhelming and humiliating all our monuments and belittling our works of architecture, which will just disappear before this stupefying folly ... this odious column of bolted metal.”
_Picture dated March 31, 1889, shows the Eiffel Tower in Paris just after it was built._
# Way back when, Chrysler stole its thunder.
But who’s laughing now?
The tower was the tallest building in the world until the Chrysler Building went up in New York in 1930.
But look at the bottom lines. The tower has been a reliable money-maker. Despite a scandal over 15 workers embezzling ticket revenue, the Paris city agency running the tower reported 2007 operating income of 59.8 million euros and operating profit of 1.5 million euros.
Chrysler? Bankrupt.
_One of the views from the top of the Eiffel Tower._
# It’s in a relationship.
In 2008, a 36-year-old San Francisco woman, formerly a member of the U.S. Army and a champion archer, “married” the tower and changed her name to Erika La Tour Eiffel.
# It’s in bookstores now.
There’s a new book out, “Eiffel’s Tower: And the World’s Fair Where Buffalo Bill Beguiled Paris, the Artists Quarreled, and Thomas Edison Became a Count." The author is Jill Jonnes, and some of the nine previous nuggets come from her work. Many others come from the tower’s own website at http://www.eiffel-tower.us. - UnFriendlyFire, on 05/15/2009, -1/+21It suffers from shrinkage on cold days, lol.
- dalectrics, on 05/15/2009, -2/+1610 Things You Think I Didn't Know About the Eiffel Tower
- BlackOculus, on 05/15/2009, -1/+1310 things you didn't care to know about the Eiffel Tower.
- earthceltic, on 05/15/2009, -3/+14The moment i saw the last eight of them were links I closed the page. There is no reason why this information couldn't have been on one list. Are we ever going to have *good* web design again?
- jrburkh, on 05/15/2009, -0/+9They missed my favorite:
In the '20s, the Eiffel Tower was 'sold' by a con man... twice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Lustig - CoD4, on 05/15/2009, -0/+7that's what she said
- chinaman1212, on 05/15/2009, -0/+6so do i.
- BenTheTank, on 05/15/2009, -2/+7The only thing you need to know about the Eiffel Tower:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=eif ... - suntzusputnik, on 05/15/2009, -0/+4"Fact #6 It's more expensive than the one in Las Vegas."
no ***** ***** - rpgmakr, on 05/15/2009, -0/+3That's what she said.
- Defiant001, on 05/15/2009, -0/+2I didn't realize steel could contract and expand that much
- LegomanArt, on 05/15/2009, -1/+3What?
- ddhillon, on 05/15/2009, -0/+2Maybe the woman got married to it because of this characteristic...
- meyert11, on 05/15/2009, -1/+3worst list ever
- digitalArtform, on 05/15/2009, -0/+2Fact 11 - the night time lighting display is copyrighted
- PaulClayberg, on 05/15/2009, -0/+1It's MARRIED?!
- Phillycook2, on 05/15/2009, -0/+1The web site in the LA Times article is NOT the official Eiffel Tower web site - for that you need to go to http://www.tour-eiffel.fr/teiffel/uk/
- H3llr41s3r, on 05/15/2009, -1/+2"Fact #1 It suffers from shrinkage. Not counting its antenna, the iron tower is about 984 feet tall. But on cold days it's roughly 6 inches shorter."
Not only on cold days though but when I spot an ugly girl, My lower Antenna suffers from shrinkage too. - Phillycook2, on 05/15/2009, -0/+1It's where I'd rather be - Latitude: 48º 51' 32" North Longitude: 002º 17' 45" East
- turquoisefish, on 05/15/2009, -0/+1I knew about 8 of those already, so 2 things I didn't know about the Eiffel Tower, on 10 pages
- SeanyMac, on 05/15/2009, -0/+1If I wanted information about the Tower, why would I go to an online article from a newspaper printed halfway around the world?
That's like going to the Kansas City Herald to read "information" and "zany facts!!!" about the Great Wall of China. - ShiftyBizniss, on 05/15/2009, -0/+1Thank you for that.
"Hey Matt, remember when we Eiffel towered Ruth? " - Futurama56, on 05/15/2009, -0/+1Cool, considering I live 100 meters away :)
- javajoba, on 07/20/2009, -0/+1Great photo
- frostbyt, on 05/15/2009, -0/+1Towers are tall.
- Hellahulla, on 05/15/2009, -0/+1You can't climb up it? What a *****, I'd love to do that!
And ... married...? - protogenxl, on 05/15/2009, -0/+1Fact 13 - The Eiffel Tower was designed as an early Ecto Containment unit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPMvDsdw8Zo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJFB-2f72z4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74XulnE0Yvo - webconnoisseur, on 05/15/2009, -0/+1Fact 11: You can't take pictures of the Eiffel Tower at night: http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/fast-company-staff ...
Apparently the French are embarrassed about the shrinkage the Eiffel Tower suffers on those cold evenings! - raza7370, on 05/15/2009, -0/+1wow.......... nice pic
- nikhil760, on 05/15/2009, -0/+1yeah, my weiner shrinks six inches on cold days.How is that for an article on LA Times eh? Digg that will you?
- richlw, on 05/15/2009, -0/+1it's a cookbook?
- crazzy88ss, on 05/15/2009, -0/+1The damn tower was closed while I was in paris for 5 days at the beginning of April. Why was it closed? The workers were on strike. How long were they on strike for? About 5 days...
- digitalArtform, on 05/15/2009, -0/+1Fact 12 - on youtube you can see some 19th century dude in a flying suit um, not fly from it.
Franz Reichelt - Eiffel Tower - ShiftyBizniss, on 05/16/2009, -0/+1I was thinking the same thing, Forty
- lphchld, on 05/16/2009, -0/+1actually it's surrounded by tourists, Bosnian women asking for money, and guys harassing tourists with cheap Eiffel Tower keychains.
- lphchld, on 05/16/2009, -0/+1That sucks, I just got back from France yesterday and went to the top. The view was definitely worth the 13 euros.
- FortyCaliber, on 05/15/2009, -0/+1Who ***** a girl named "Ruth..." was she 80?
- OwdenBowden, on 05/15/2009, -3/+310 - its French therefor it sucks.
09 - its French therefor it sucks.
08 - its French therefor it sucks.
07 - its French therefor it sucks.
06 - its French therefor it sucks.
05 - its French therefor it sucks.
04 - its French therefor it sucks.
03 - its French therefor it sucks.
02 - its French therefor it sucks.
and
01 - its French therefor it it the prefect place to Surrender. - samard2002, on 05/15/2009, -4/+4It's spelled "Eiffel"? I thought it was "Aye, Phil". Guess that's 11 things.
- dbixler, on 05/15/2009, -0/+0Could someone please make the end all list of "10 things you don't want to know 10 things you don't know about" so we don't have to see any more of these stories on digg?
- Inaktivist, on 05/16/2009, -1/+1It's surrounded by French people. I don't need to know anymore than that to know I don't want to go anywhere near it.
- gfelstein55, on 05/16/2009, -1/+0Those are quite interesting insights with an obvious twist of humor in the last few...Eiffel Tower rocks....
- Grueslayer, on 05/15/2009, -1/+0What? It's in France?!?!
- spaceman77, on 05/15/2009, -2/+1Thanks for the heads up, I'll give it a pass now.
- worseforwine, on 05/15/2009, -2/+1Little Eiffel stands in the archwayyyyy
- iDiggr, on 05/15/2009, -2/+1I like turtles.
Fag.
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