The Iron Lady Gets a Face-Lift

By Awake! correspondent in France

SHE’S along in years but doesn’t have any wrinkles. She has always been well looked after. Every seven years she gets a face-lift. And just recently she was put on a slimming diet that gave her back some of her youth. She really needed it.

Since her birth in 1889, the Eiffel Tower, fondly known as the Iron Lady, has experienced many a misadventure. Concrete floors were poured that overloaded the first floor, and unsightly stores and booths were set up on its various floors. Girders began to bend under the extra load. It also became necessary to remove the gas piping that went up to the restaurants on the first and second floors. It was no longer up to modern safety standards.

In the early 1980’s, the city of Paris gave the green light for necessary renovation work to be done. The aim was to give life and prestige back to the old Iron Lady and facilitate the welcoming of the millions of visitors that come to see her every year.a The removal of parasite structures helped her to “lose weight”​—more than a thousand tons. Yet, the renovation has allowed the adding of new stores, a modern conference room, a video museum retracing her history, a post office, and restaurants worthy of the site and catering to different classes of clients.

The old hydraulic elevator between the second and third floors (taking tourists from the middle of the tower to the top) has been removed. In extremely cold weather, it was necessary to suspend its use. Thus, tourists visiting Paris in winter were often disappointed at not being able to go up any farther than the second platform. Now, four high-speed electric elevators can do the shuttling under all weather conditions. This greatly reduces the lines of people waiting to go to the top.

Some people regret that in the recent modifications, she lost her spiral staircase connecting the second and third floors. But she was given new lighting. Hundreds of skillfully placed floodlights enhance her delicate structure and allow her to show off at night in all her splendor.

The Iron Lady is a hundred years old this year. Though she was highly controversial at her birth, hardly anyone would wish to see her disappear from the Paris skyline. She is still its most famous symbol throughout the world.

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[Pictures on page 10, 11]

Millions of tourists enjoy a bird’s-eye view of Paris from the Eiffel Tower