Can someone tell me some interesting facts about the Eiffel Tower?

Question

Just curious!

Basic facts are good.

But interesting and bizarre facts are welcome!

Thanks for any input!

Answer 1

Until the Eiffel Tower was built the Washington monument was the tallest structure on Earth and before the record holder had been the Great Pyramid at Giza in Egypt and had been for thousands of years.   It held that record until the Chrysler Bldg. was built in New York in 1930.  

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Eiffel was not the actual designer of the tower but owned the company that designed and built it.  Parts were built in a factory and sent to the building site ready to be added like an erector set.  Eiffel's firm built other structures that were considered monumental in their time like bridges and the inner supporting structure of the Statue of Liberty.  Eiffel until his death felt that the tower's fame outshone all his other accomplishments unfairly and was quoted as saying "the tower is killing me"

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The tower was supposed to be taken down after the worlds fair but soon radio was invented and it's value as a transmission tower kept it from being scrapped.

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Safety practices and nets put into place for the first time on such a large construction meant that only one man was killied during the building of the tower.

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Eiffel had a personal apartment built for himself at the top of the tower.  It is preserved and can be seen today.  He didn't stay in it for very long, inclement weather kept him from occupancy.

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The number of entrance tickets sold each year to visitors, especially since the Tower is the monument the most visited in the world. The Tower consumes 2 tons of paper per year in order to issue the necessary annual number of tickets.

An essential element of the monument, these elevators travel a distance of more than 103,000 kilometers annually, in other words, two and a half times around the earth.

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Answer 2

If a sphere was made around the Eiffel tower and encompassed it, the weight of the air would actually weigh more than the tower, itself.

Answer 3

last week, someone sold a piece of stairs from th Eiffel Tower, she could sell it for more than 100 000 euros, if I remember well...

Answer 4

You'll find a lot of facts on the Eiffel Tower's official website.

http://www.tour-eiffel.fr/teiffel/uk/

One fact for you: two years ago, they had a skating rink on the first floor of the tower during the winter season:

http://www.tour-eiffel.fr/teiffel/fr/act...

Answer 5

The bare-metal design of the tower was deemed so ugly at that time when architectural taste still veered towards the Classical that critics called it an oversized suppository desecrating the skyline of Paris!