Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venice

 

Venice (Italian: Venezia; Venetian: Venesia, Venexia) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region.

 

It is situated across a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The islands are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave rivers (more exactly between the Brenta and the Sile). Parts of Venice are renowned for the beauty of their settings, their architecture, and artwork. The lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

In 2018, 260,897 people resided in Comune di Venezia, of whom around 55,000 live in the historical city of Venice (Centro storico). Together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), with a total population of 2.6 million. PATREVE is only a statistical metropolitan area.

 

The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC. The city was historically the capital of the Republic of Venice. Venice has been known as the "La Dominante", "Serenissima", "Queen of the Adriatic", "City of Water", "City of Masks", "City of Bridges", "The Floating City", and "City of Canals."

 

The 697-1797 Republic of Venice was a major financial and maritime power during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and a staging area for the Crusades and the Battle of Lepanto, as well as a very important center of commerce (especially silk, grain, and spice) and art in the 13th century up to the end of the 17th century. The city-state of Venice is considered to have been the first real international financial center which gradually emerged from the 9th century to its peak in the 14th century. This made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history.

 

It is also known for its several important artistic movements, especially the Renaissance period. After the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna, the Republic was annexed by the Austrian Empire, until it became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1866, following a referendum held as a result of the Third Italian War of Independence. Venice has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, and it is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi. Although the city is facing some major challenges (including financial difficulties, pollution, an excessive number of tourists and problems caused by cruise ships sailing close to the buildings), Venice remains a very popular tourist destination and an iconic Italian city, and has been ranked the most beautiful city in the world.

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fondazione_Musei_Civici_di_Venezia

 

Founded following the resolution passed by the Municipal Council Board of Venice on March 3rd 2008, the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia (MUVE) manages and develops the cultural and artistic heritage of Venice and islands. Formed as a participatory foundation, it has only one founding member, the City of Venice.

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piazza_San_Marco

 

Piazza San Marco (Venetian: Piasa San Marco), often known in English as St Mark's Square, is the principal public square of Venice, Italy, where it is generally known just as la Piazza ("the Square"). All other urban spaces in the city (except the Piazzetta and the Piazzale Roma) are called campi ("fields"). The Piazzetta ("little Piazza/Square") is an extension of the Piazza towards the lagoon in its south east corner (see plan). The two spaces together form the social, religious and political centre of Venice and are commonly considered together. This article relates to both of them.

 

A remark usually attributed (though without proof) to Napoleon calls the Piazza San Marco "the drawing room of Europe".

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procuratie

 

The Procuratie (literally, "procuracies") are three connected buildings on St Mark's Square in Venice. They are also connected to St Mark's Clocktower. They are historic buildings over arcades, the last of them completed, to finish off the square, under Napoleon's occupation.

 

The oldest of the buildings is the Procuratie Vecchie on the north side of the Square, built as a two-storey structure in the twelfth century, to house the offices and apartments of the procurators of San Marco. They were rebuilt after a fire in the sixteenth century to a three-storey design by Codussi which still betrays something of its Gothic roots.

 

The Procuratie Nuove, on the south side of the Square was begun in 1586 by Vincenzo Scamozzi in a more strictly Classical style and completed by Longhena in 1640, designed to afford more space to offices connected with the procurators.

 

The two buildings originally had wings on the west side of the Square, separated only by a small church. In about 1810, the wings and the church were demolished and replaced by the third building, the Napoleonic Wing of the Procuraties. It was designed by Giuseppe Maria Soli in a Neoclassical manner.

 

In the neoclassical interiors so out of character in Venice, were housed the Napoleonic governor after the fall of the Venetian Republic, then the Austrian governor, then they were reserved for the use of the kings of Italy and now the President of the Italian Republic receives in them if he is in Venice. The Procuratie Vecchie and the Procuratie Nuove house old, famous and expensive coffee houses, cheek-by-jowl: Gran Caffè Quadri, Caffè Florian, which opened December 29, 1720, and Caffè Lavena, in the same premises since the mid-18th century; it was Richard Wagner's favorite. Above, many a Venetian family whose Ca might be a long gondola ride from the Piazza, kept a small apartment for entertaining called a ridotto, the scenes of paintings of fashionable life by Alessandro Longhi. The ridotti were extremely fashionable in Venice. As much care and taste went into the furnishings and stuccoed and painted decor of the ridotti as were expended on the palazzi of Venice themselves. The Republic Square (in Croatian Trg republike), called by locals Prokurative in Split, Croatia was built after Procuratie.

 

Today, the Napoleonic Wing (Procuratie Nuovissime) and part of the Procuratie Nuove house the Correr Museum.

 

In 2017, English architect Sir David Chipperfield was appointed to supervise renovation of the Procuratie Vecchie.

Lise has changed her mind. This used to be her living room in her small apartment, but lately she felt the need to change and make the house more organized and comfortable. So the living room has been moved to the room facing the street, and this will be the bedroom. It's still very empty, but Lise is very happy with the new color of the walls, and she's sure it will soon become a cozy bedroom!

Eiffel Tower

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This article is about the landmark in Paris, France. For other uses, see Eiffel Tower (disambiguation).

"300-metre tower" and "Tour Eiffel" redirect here. For other tall towers, see List of tallest towers. For other uses, see Tour Eiffel (disambiguation).

The Eiffel Tower

La tour Eiffel

Tour Eiffel Wikimedia Commons.jpg

Seen from the Champ de Mars

Wikimedia | © OpenStreetMap

Record height

Tallest in the world from 1889 to 1930[I]

General information

TypeObservation tower

Broadcasting tower

Location7th arrondissement, Paris, France

Coordinates48°51′29.6″N 2°17′40.2″ECoordinates: 48°51′29.6″N 2°17′40.2″E

Construction started28 January 1887; 134 years ago

Completed15 March 1889; 132 years ago

Opening31 March 1889; 132 years ago

OwnerCity of Paris, France

ManagementSociété d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE)

Height

Architectural300 m (984 ft)[1]

Tip324 m (1,063 ft)[1]

Top floor276 m (906 ft)[1]

Technical details

Floor count3[2]

Lifts/elevators8[2]

Design and construction

ArchitectStephen Sauvestre

Structural engineerMaurice Koechlin

Émile Nouguier

Main contractorCompagnie des Etablissements Eiffel

Website

toureiffel.paris/en

References

I. ^ Eiffel Tower at Emporis

File:Eiffel Tower Drone 4k-Qx c1X3zfEc-313-251.webm

Eiffel Tower Drone

The Eiffel Tower (/ˈaɪfəl/ EYE-fəl; French: tour Eiffel [tuʁ‿ɛfɛl] (About this soundlisten)) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.

 

Locally nicknamed "La dame de fer" (French for "Iron Lady"), it was constructed from 1887 to 1889 as the entrance to the 1889 World's Fair and was initially criticised by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but it has become a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognisable structures in the world.[3] The Eiffel Tower is the most visited monument with an entrance fee in the world; 6.91 million people ascended it in 2015.

 

The tower is 324 metres (1,063 ft) tall, about the same height as an 81-storey building, and the tallest structure in Paris. Its base is square, measuring 125 metres (410 ft) on each side. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to become the tallest man-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years until the Chrysler Building in New York City was finished in 1930. It was the first structure in the world to surpass both the 200-metre and 300-metre mark in height. Due to the addition of a broadcasting aerial at the top of the tower in 1957, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building by 5.2 metres (17 ft). Excluding transmitters, the Eiffel Tower is the second tallest free-standing structure in France after the Millau Viaduct.

 

The tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the first and second levels. The top level's upper platform is 276 m (906 ft) above the ground – the highest observation deck accessible to the public in the European Union. Tickets can be purchased to ascend by stairs or lift to the first and second levels. The climb from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the climb from the first level to the second. Although there is a staircase to the top level, it is usually accessible only by lift.

  

Contents

1History

1.1Origin

1.2Artists' protest

1.3Construction

1.3.1Lifts

1.4Inauguration and the 1889 exposition

1.5Subsequent events

2Design

2.1Material

2.2Wind considerations

2.3Accommodation

2.4Passenger lifts

2.5Engraved names

2.6Aesthetics

2.7Maintenance

3Tourism

3.1Transport

3.2Popularity

3.3Restaurants

4Replicas

5Communications

5.1FM radio

5.2Digital television

6Illumination copyright

7Height changes

8Taller structures

8.1Lattice towers taller than the Eiffel Tower

8.2Structures in France taller than the Eiffel Tower

9See also

10References

10.1Notes

10.2Bibliography

11External links

History

Origin

The design of the Eiffel Tower is attributed to Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, two senior engineers working for the Compagnie des Établissements Eiffel. It was envisioned after discussion about a suitable centrepiece for the proposed 1889 Exposition Universelle, a world's fair to celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution. Eiffel openly acknowledged that inspiration for a tower came from the Latting Observatory built in New York City in 1853.[4] In May 1884, working at home, Koechlin made a sketch of their idea, described by him as "a great pylon, consisting of four lattice girders standing apart at the base and coming together at the top, joined together by metal trusses at regular intervals".[5] Eiffel initially showed little enthusiasm, but he did approve further study, and the two engineers then asked Stephen Sauvestre, the head of the company's architectural department, to contribute to the design. Sauvestre added decorative arches to the base of the tower, a glass pavilion to the first level, and other embellishments.

  

First drawing of the Eiffel Tower by Maurice Koechlin including size comparison with other Parisian landmarks such as Notre Dame de Paris, the Statue of Liberty and the Vendôme Column

The new version gained Eiffel's support: he bought the rights to the patent on the design which Koechlin, Nougier, and Sauvestre had taken out, and the design was put on display at the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in the autumn of 1884 under the company name. On 30 March 1885, Eiffel presented his plans to the Société des Ingénieurs Civils; after discussing the technical problems and emphasising the practical uses of the tower, he finished his talk by saying the tower would symbolise

[n]ot only the art of the modern engineer, but also the century of Industry and Science in which we are living, and for which the way was prepared by the great scientific movement of the eighteenth century and by the Revolution of 1789, to which this monument will be built as an expression of France's gratitude.[6]

 

Little progress was made until 1886, when Jules Grévy was re-elected as president of France and Édouard Lockroy was appointed as minister for trade. A budget for the exposition was passed and, on 1 May, Lockroy announced an alteration to the terms of the open competition being held for a centrepiece to the exposition, which effectively made the selection of Eiffel's design a foregone conclusion, as entries had to include a study for a 300 m (980 ft) four-sided metal tower on the Champ de Mars.[6] (A 300-metre tower was then considered a herculean engineering effort). On 12 May, a commission was set up to examine Eiffel's scheme and its rivals, which, a month later, decided that all the proposals except Eiffel's were either impractical or lacking in details.

 

After some debate about the exact location of the tower, a contract was signed on 8 January 1887. Eiffel signed it acting in his own capacity rather than as the representative of his company, the contract granting him 1.5 million francs toward the construction costs: less than a quarter of the estimated 6.5 million francs. Eiffel was to receive all income from the commercial exploitation of the tower during the exhibition and for the next 20 years. He later established a separate company to manage the tower, putting up half the necessary capital himself.[7]

 

Artists' protest

 

Caricature of Gustave Eiffel comparing the Eiffel tower to the Pyramids, published in Le Temps, February 14, 1887.

The proposed tower had been a subject of controversy, drawing criticism from those who did not believe it was feasible and those who objected on artistic grounds. Prior to the Eiffel Tower's construction, no structure had ever been constructed to a height of 300 m, or even 200 m for that matter,[8] and many people believed it was impossible. These objections were an expression of a long-standing debate in France about the relationship between architecture and engineering. It came to a head as work began at the Champ de Mars: a "Committee of Three Hundred" (one member for each metre of the tower's height) was formed, led by the prominent architect Charles Garnier and including some of the most important figures of the arts, such as William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Guy de Maupassant, Charles Gounod and Jules Massenet. A petition called "Artists against the Eiffel Tower" was sent to the Minister of Works and Commissioner for the Exposition, Adolphe Alphand, and it was published by Le Temps on 14 February 1887:

 

We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection … of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower … To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years … we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal.[9]

  

A calligram by Guillaume Apollinaire

Gustave Eiffel responded to these criticisms by comparing his tower to the Egyptian pyramids: "My tower will be the tallest edifice ever erected by man. Will it not also be grandiose in its way? And why would something admirable in Egypt become hideous and ridiculous in Paris?"[10] These criticisms were also dealt with by Édouard Lockroy in a letter of support written to Alphand, sardonically saying,[11] "Judging by the stately swell of the rhythms, the beauty of the metaphors, the elegance of its delicate and precise style, one can tell this protest is the result of collaboration of the most famous writers and poets of our time", and he explained that the protest was irrelevant since the project had been decided upon months before, and construction on the tower was already under way.

 

Indeed, Garnier was a member of the Tower Commission that had examined the various proposals, and had raised no objection. Eiffel was similarly unworried, pointing out to a journalist that it was premature to judge the effect of the tower solely on the basis of the drawings, that the Champ de Mars was distant enough from the monuments mentioned in the protest for there to be little risk of the tower overwhelming them, and putting the aesthetic argument for the tower: "Do not the laws of natural forces always conform to the secret laws of harmony?"[12]

 

Some of the protesters changed their minds when the tower was built; others remained unconvinced.[13] Guy de Maupassant supposedly ate lunch in the tower's restaurant every day because it was the one place in Paris where the tower was not visible.[14]

 

By 1918, it had become a symbol of Paris and of France after Guillaume Apollinaire wrote a nationalist poem in the shape of the tower (a calligram) to express his feelings about the war against Germany.[15] Today, it is widely considered to be a remarkable piece of structural art, and is often featured in films and literature.

 

Construction

 

Foundations of the Eiffel Tower

Work on the foundations started on 28 January 1887.[16] Those for the east and south legs were straightforward, with each leg resting on four 2 m (6.6 ft) concrete slabs, one for each of the principal girders of each leg. The west and north legs, being closer to the river Seine, were more complicated: each slab needed two piles installed by using compressed-air caissons 15 m (49 ft) long and 6 m (20 ft) in diameter driven to a depth of 22 m (72 ft)[17] to support the concrete slabs, which were 6 m (20 ft) thick. Each of these slabs supported a block of limestone with an inclined top to bear a supporting shoe for the ironwork.

 

Each shoe was anchored to the stonework by a pair of bolts 10 cm (4 in) in diameter and 7.5 m (25 ft) long. The foundations were completed on 30 June, and the erection of the ironwork began. The visible work on-site was complemented by the enormous amount of exacting preparatory work that took place behind the scenes: the drawing office produced 1,700 general drawings and 3,629 detailed drawings of the 18,038 different parts needed.[18] The task of drawing the components was complicated by the complex angles involved in the design and the degree of precision required: the position of rivet holes was specified to within 1 mm (0.04 in) and angles worked out to one second of arc.[19] The finished components, some already riveted together into sub-assemblies, arrived on horse-drawn carts from a factory in the nearby Parisian suburb of Levallois-Perret and were first bolted together, with the bolts being replaced with rivets as construction progressed. No drilling or shaping was done on site: if any part did not fit, it was sent back to the factory for alteration. In all, 18,038 pieces were joined together using 2.5 million rivets.[16]

 

At first, the legs were constructed as cantilevers, but about halfway to the first level construction was paused to create a substantial timber scaffold. This renewed concerns about the structural integrity of the tower, and sensational headlines such as "Eiffel Suicide!" and "Gustave Eiffel Has Gone Mad: He Has Been Confined in an Asylum" appeared in the tabloid press.[20] At this stage, a small "creeper" crane designed to move up the tower was installed in each leg. They made use of the guides for the lifts which were to be fitted in the four legs. The critical stage of joining the legs at the first level was completed by the end of March 1888.[16] Although the metalwork had been prepared with the utmost attention to detail, provision had been made to carry out small adjustments to precisely align the legs; hydraulic jacks were fitted to the shoes at the base of each leg, capable of exerting a force of 800 tonnes, and the legs were intentionally constructed at a slightly steeper angle than necessary, being supported by sandboxes on the scaffold. Although construction involved 300 on-site employees,[16] due to Eiffel's safety precautions and the use of movable gangways, guardrails and screens, only one person died.[21]

  

18 July 1887:

The start of the erection of the metalwork

   

7 December 1887:

Construction of the legs with scaffolding

   

20 March 1888:

Completion of the first level

   

15 May 1888:

Start of construction on the second stage

   

21 August 1888:

Completion of the second level

   

26 December 1888:

Construction of the upper stage

   

15 March 1889:

Construction of the cupola

 

Lifts

 

The Roux, Combaluzier & Lepape lifts during construction. Note the drive sprockets and chain in the foreground.

Equipping the tower with adequate and safe passenger lifts was a major concern of the government commission overseeing the Exposition. Although some visitors could be expected to climb to the first level, or even the second, lifts clearly had to be the main means of ascent.[22]

 

Constructing lifts to reach the first level was relatively straightforward: the legs were wide enough at the bottom and so nearly straight that they could contain a straight track, and a contract was given to the French company Roux, Combaluzier & Lepape for two lifts to be fitted in the east and west legs.[23] Roux, Combaluzier & Lepape used a pair of endless chains with rigid, articulated links to which the car was attached. Lead weights on some links of the upper or return sections of the chains counterbalanced most of the car's weight. The car was pushed up from below, not pulled up from above: to prevent the chain buckling, it was enclosed in a conduit. At the bottom of the run, the chains passed around 3.9 m (12 ft 10 in) diameter sprockets. Smaller sprockets at the top guided the chains.[23]

  

The Otis lifts originally fitted in the north and south legs

Installing lifts to the second level was more of a challenge because a straight track was impossible. No French company wanted to undertake the work. The European branch of Otis Brothers & Company submitted a proposal but this was rejected: the fair's charter ruled out the use of any foreign material in the construction of the tower. The deadline for bids was extended but still no French companies put themselves forward, and eventually the contract was given to Otis in July 1887.[24] Otis were confident they would eventually be given the contract and had already started creating designs.[citation needed]

 

The car was divided into two superimposed compartments, each holding 25 passengers, with the lift operator occupying an exterior platform on the first level. Motive power was provided by an inclined hydraulic ram 12.67 m (41 ft 7 in) long and 96.5 cm (38.0 in) in diameter in the tower leg with a stroke of 10.83 m (35 ft 6 in): this moved a carriage carrying six sheaves. Five fixed sheaves were mounted higher up the leg, producing an arrangement similar to a block and tackle but acting in reverse, multiplying the stroke of the piston rather than the force generated. The hydraulic pressure in the driving cylinder was produced by a large open reservoir on the second level. After being exhausted from the cylinder, the water was pumped back up to the reservoir by two pumps in the machinery room at the base of the south leg. This reservoir also provided power to the lifts to the first level.[citation needed]

 

The original lifts for the journey between the second and third levels were supplied by Léon Edoux. A pair of 81 m (266 ft) hydraulic rams were mounted on the second level, reaching nearly halfway up to the third level. One lift car was mounted on top of these rams: cables ran from the top of this car up to sheaves on the third level and back down to a second car. Each car only travelled half the distance between the second and third levels and passengers were required to change lifts halfway by means of a short gangway. The 10-ton cars each held 65 passengers.[25]

 

Inauguration and the 1889 exposition

 

View of the 1889 World's Fair

The main structural work was completed at the end of March 1889 and, on 31 March, Eiffel celebrated by leading a group of government officials, accompanied by representatives of the press, to the top of the tower.[13] Because the lifts were not yet in operation, the ascent was made by foot, and took over an hour, with Eiffel stopping frequently to explain various features. Most of the party chose to stop at the lower levels, but a few, including the structural engineer, Émile Nouguier, the head of construction, Jean Compagnon, the President of the City Council, and reporters from Le Figaro and Le Monde Illustré, completed the ascent. At 2:35 pm, Eiffel hoisted a large Tricolour to the accompaniment of a 25-gun salute fired at the first level.[26]

 

There was still work to be done, particularly on the lifts and facilities, and the tower was not opened to the public until nine days after the opening of the exposition on 6 May; even then, the lifts had not been completed. The tower was an instant success with the public, and nearly 30,000 visitors made the 1,710-step climb to the top before the lifts entered service on 26 May.[27] Tickets cost 2 francs for the first level, 3 for the second, and 5 for the top, with half-price admission on Sundays,[28] and by the end of the exhibition there had been 1,896,987 visitors.[3]

 

After dark, the tower was lit by hundreds of gas lamps, and a beacon sent out three beams of red, white and blue light. Two searchlights mounted on a circular rail were used to illuminate various buildings of the exposition. The daily opening and closing of the exposition were announced by a cannon at the top.[citation needed]

  

Illumination of the tower at night during the exposition

On the second level, the French newspaper Le Figaro had an office and a printing press, where a special souvenir edition, Le Figaro de la Tour, was made. There was also a pâtisserie.[citation needed]

 

At the top, there was a post office where visitors could send letters and postcards as a memento of their visit. Graffitists were also catered for: sheets of paper were mounted on the walls each day for visitors to record their impressions of the tower. Gustave Eiffel described some of the responses as vraiment curieuse ("truly curious").[29]

 

Famous visitors to the tower included the Prince of Wales, Sarah Bernhardt, "Buffalo Bill" Cody (his Wild West show was an attraction at the exposition) and Thomas Edison.[27] Eiffel invited Edison to his private apartment at the top of the tower, where Edison presented him with one of his phonographs, a new invention and one of the many highlights of the exposition.[30] Edison signed the guestbook with this message:

To M Eiffel the Engineer the brave builder of so gigantic and original specimen of modern Engineering from one who has the greatest respect and admiration for all Engineers including the Great Engineer the Bon Dieu, Thomas Edison.

 

Eiffel had a permit for the tower to stand for 20 years. It was to be dismantled in 1909, when its ownership would revert to the City of Paris. The City had planned to tear it down (part of the original contest rules for designing a tower was that it should be easy to dismantle) but as the tower proved to be valuable for radio telegraphy, it was allowed to remain after the expiry of the permit, and from 1910 it also became part of the International Time Service.[31]

 

Eiffel made use of his apartment at the top of the tower to carry out meteorological observations, and also used the tower to perform experiments on the action of air resistance on falling bodies.[32]

 

Subsequent events

File:Vue Lumière No 992 - Panorama pendant l'ascension de la Tour Eiffel (1898).ogv

Panoramic view during ascent of the Eiffel Tower by the Lumière brothers, 1898

File:Reichelt.ogv

Franz Reichelt's preparations and fatal jump from the Eiffel Tower

For the 1900 Exposition Universelle, the lifts in the east and west legs were replaced by lifts running as far as the second level constructed by the French firm Fives-Lille. These had a compensating mechanism to keep the floor level as the angle of ascent changed at the first level, and were driven by a similar hydraulic mechanism to the Otis lifts, although this was situated at the base of the tower. Hydraulic pressure was provided by pressurised accumulators located near this mechanism.[24] At the same time the lift in the north pillar was removed and replaced by a staircase to the first level. The layout of both first and second levels was modified, with the space available for visitors on the second level. The original lift in the south pillar was removed 13 years later.[citation needed]

 

On 19 October 1901, Alberto Santos-Dumont, flying his No.6 airship, won a 100,000-franc prize offered by Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe for the first person to make a flight from St. Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and back in less than half an hour.[33]

 

Many innovations took place at the Eiffel Tower in the early 20th century. In 1910, Father Theodor Wulf measured radiant energy at the top and bottom of the tower. He found more at the top than expected, incidentally discovering what are known today as cosmic rays.[34] Just two years later, on 4 February 1912, Austrian tailor Franz Reichelt died after jumping from the first level of the tower (a height of 57 m) to demonstrate his parachute design.[35] In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, a radio transmitter located in the tower jammed German radio communications, seriously hindering their advance on Paris and contributing to the Allied victory at the First Battle of the Marne.[36] From 1925 to 1934, illuminated signs for Citroën adorned three of the tower's sides, making it the tallest advertising space in the world at the time.[37] In April 1935, the tower was used to make experimental low-resolution television transmissions, using a shortwave transmitter of 200 watts power. On 17 November, an improved 180-line transmitter was installed.[38]

 

On two separate but related occasions in 1925, the con artist Victor Lustig "sold" the tower for scrap metal.[39] A year later, in February 1926, pilot Leon Collet was killed trying to fly under the tower. His aircraft became entangled in an aerial belonging to a wireless station.[40] A bust of Gustave Eiffel by Antoine Bourdelle was unveiled at the base of the north leg on 2 May 1929.[41] In 1930, the tower lost the title of the world's tallest structure when the Chrysler Building in New York City was completed.[42] In 1938, the decorative arcade around the first level was removed.[43]

  

American soldiers watch the French flag flying on the Eiffel Tower, c. 25 August 1944

Upon the German occupation of Paris in 1940, the lift cables were cut by the French. The tower was closed to the public during the occupation and the lifts were not repaired until 1946.[44] In 1940, German soldiers had to climb the tower to hoist a swastika-centered Reichskriegsflagge,[45] but the flag was so large it blew away just a few hours later, and was replaced by a smaller one.[46] When visiting Paris, Hitler chose to stay on the ground. When the Allies were nearing Paris in August 1944, Hitler ordered General Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, to demolish the tower along with the rest of the city. Von Choltitz disobeyed the order.[47] On 25 June, before the Germans had been driven out of Paris, the German flag was replaced with a Tricolour by two men from the French Naval Museum, who narrowly beat three men led by Lucien Sarniguet, who had lowered the Tricolour on 13 June 1940 when Paris fell to the Germans.[44]

 

A fire started in the television transmitter on 3 January 1956, damaging the top of the tower. Repairs took a year, and in 1957, the present radio aerial was added to the top.[48] In 1964, the Eiffel Tower was officially declared to be a historical monument by the Minister of Cultural Affairs, André Malraux.[49] A year later, an additional lift system was installed in the north pillar.[50]

 

According to interviews, in 1967, Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau negotiated a secret agreement with Charles de Gaulle for the tower to be dismantled and temporarily relocated to Montreal to serve as a landmark and tourist attraction during Expo 67. The plan was allegedly vetoed by the company operating the tower out of fear that the French government could refuse permission for the tower to be restored in its original location.[51]

  

Base of the Eiffel Tower

In 1982, the original lifts between the second and third levels were replaced after 97 years in service. These had been closed to the public between November and March because the water in the hydraulic drive tended to freeze. The new cars operate in pairs, with one counterbalancing the other, and perform the journey in one stage, reducing the journey time from eight minutes to less than two minutes. At the same time, two new emergency staircases were installed, replacing the original spiral staircases. In 1983, the south pillar was fitted with an electrically driven Otis lift to serve the Jules Verne restaurant.[citation needed] The Fives-Lille lifts in the east and west legs, fitted in 1899, were extensively refurbished in 1986. The cars were replaced, and a computer system was installed to completely automate the lifts. The motive power was moved from the water hydraulic system to a new electrically driven oil-filled hydraulic system, and the original water hydraulics were retained solely as a counterbalance system.[50] A service lift was added to the south pillar for moving small loads and maintenance personnel three years later.[citation needed]

 

Robert Moriarty flew a Beechcraft Bonanza under the tower on 31 March 1984.[52] In 1987, A.J. Hackett made one of his first bungee jumps from the top of the Eiffel Tower, using a special cord he had helped develop. Hackett was arrested by the police.[53] On 27 October 1991, Thierry Devaux, along with mountain guide Hervé Calvayrac, performed a series of acrobatic figures while bungee jumping from the second floor of the tower. Facing the Champ de Mars, Devaux used an electric winch between figures to go back up to the second floor. When firemen arrived, he stopped after the sixth jump.[54]

  

The tower is the focal point of New Year's Eve and Bastille Day (14 July) celebrations in Paris.

For its "Countdown to the Year 2000" celebration on 31 December 1999, flashing lights and high-powered searchlights were installed on the tower. During the last three minutes of the year, the lights were turned on starting from the base of the tower and continuing to the top to welcome 2000 with a huge fireworks show. An exhibition above a cafeteria on the first floor commemorates this event. The searchlights on top of the tower made it a beacon in Paris's night sky, and 20,000 flashing bulbs gave the tower a sparkly appearance for five minutes every hour on the hour.[55]

 

The lights sparkled blue for several nights to herald the new millennium on 31 December 2000. The sparkly lighting continued for 18 months until July 2001. The sparkling lights were turned on again on 21 June 2003, and the display was planned to last for 10 years before they needed replacing.[56]

 

The tower received its 200,000,000th guest on 28 November 2002.[57] The tower has operated at its maximum capacity of about 7 million visitors per year since 2003.[58] In 2004, the Eiffel Tower began hosting a seasonal ice rink on the first level.[59] A glass floor was installed on the first level during the 2014 refurbishment.[60]

 

In 2016, during Valentine's Day, the performance UN BATTEMENT [61] by French artist Milène Guermont unfolds among the Eiffel Tower, the Montparnasse Tower and the contemporary artwork PHARES installed on the Place de la Concorde. This interactive pyramid-shaped sculpture allows the public to transmit the beating of their hearts thanks to a cardiac sensor. The Eiffel Tower and the Montparnasse Tower also light up to the rhythm of PHARES. This is the first time that the Eiffel Tower has interacted with a work of art.[citation needed]

 

Design

Material

 

The Eiffel Tower from below

The puddled iron (wrought iron) of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tonnes,[62] and the addition of lifts, shops and antennae have brought the total weight to approximately 10,100 tonnes.[63] As a demonstration of the economy of design, if the 7,300 tonnes of metal in the structure were melted down, it would fill the square base, 125 metres (410 ft) on each side, to a depth of only 6.25 cm (2.46 in) assuming the density of the metal to be 7.8 tonnes per cubic metre.[64] Additionally, a cubic box surrounding the tower (324 m × 125 m × 125 m) would contain 6,200 tonnes of air, weighing almost as much as the iron itself. Depending on the ambient temperature, the top of the tower may shift away from the sun by up to 18 cm (7 in) due to thermal expansion of the metal on the side facing the sun.[65]

 

Wind considerations

When it was built, many were shocked by the tower's daring form. Eiffel was accused of trying to create something artistic with no regard to the principles of engineering. However, Eiffel and his team – experienced bridge builders – understood the importance of wind forces, and knew that if they were going to build the tallest structure in the world, they had to be sure it could withstand them. In an interview with the newspaper Le Temps published on 14 February 1887, Eiffel said:

 

Is it not true that the very conditions which give strength also conform to the hidden rules of harmony? … Now to what phenomenon did I have to give primary concern in designing the Tower? It was wind resistance. Well then! I hold that the curvature of the monument's four outer edges, which is as mathematical calculation dictated it should be … will give a great impression of strength and beauty, for it will reveal to the eyes of the observer the boldness of the design as a whole.[66]

 

He used graphical methods to determine the strength of the tower and empirical evidence to account for the effects of wind, rather than a mathematical formula. Close examination of the tower reveals a basically exponential shape.[67] All parts of the tower were overdesigned to ensure maximum resistance to wind forces. The top half was even assumed to have no gaps in the latticework.[68] In the years since it was completed, engineers have put forward various mathematical hypotheses in an attempt to explain the success of the design. The most recent, devised in 2004 after letters sent by Eiffel to the French Society of Civil Engineers in 1885 were translated into English, is described as a non-linear integral equation based on counteracting the wind pressure on any point of the tower with the tension between the construction elements at that point.[67]

 

The Eiffel Tower sways by up to 9 cm (3.5 in) in the wind.[69]

 

Accommodation

 

Gustave Eiffel's apartment

When originally built, the first level contained three restaurants – one French, one Russian and one Flemish — and an "Anglo-American Bar". After the exposition closed, the Flemish restaurant was converted to a 250-seat theatre. A promenade 2.6-metre (8 ft 6 in) wide ran around the outside of the first level. At the top, there were laboratories for various experiments, and a small apartment reserved for Gustave Eiffel to entertain guests, which is now open to the public, complete with period decorations and lifelike mannequins of Eiffel and some of his notable guests.[70]

 

In May 2016, an apartment was created on the first level to accommodate four competition winners during the UEFA Euro 2016 football tournament in Paris in June. The apartment has a kitchen, two bedrooms, a lounge, and views of Paris landmarks including the Seine, Sacré-Cœur, and the Arc de Triomphe.[71]

 

Passenger lifts

The arrangement of the lifts has been changed several times during the tower's history. Given the elasticity of the cables and the time taken to align the cars with the landings, each lift, in normal service, takes an average of 8 minutes and 50 seconds to do the round trip, spending an average of 1 minute and 15 seconds at each level. The average journey time between levels is 1 minute. The original hydraulic mechanism is on public display in a small museum at the base of the east and west legs. Because the mechanism requires frequent lubrication and maintenance, public access is often restricted. The rope mechanism of the north tower can be seen as visitors exit the lift.[72]

 

Engraved names

Main article: List of the 72 names on the Eiffel Tower

 

Names engraved on the tower

Gustave Eiffel engraved on the tower the names of 72 French scientists, engineers and mathematicians in recognition of their contributions to the building of the tower. Eiffel chose this "invocation of science" because of his concern over the artists' protest. At the beginning of the 20th century, the engravings were painted over, but they were restored in 1986–87 by the Société Nouvelle d'exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, a company operating the tower.[73]

 

Aesthetics

The tower is painted in three shades: lighter at the top, getting progressively darker towards the bottom to complement the Parisian sky.[74] It was originally reddish brown; this changed in 1968 to a bronze colour known as "Eiffel Tower Brown".[75]

 

The only non-structural elements are the four decorative grill-work arches, added in Sauvestre's sketches, which served to make the tower look more substantial and to make a more impressive entrance to the exposition.[76]

 

A pop-culture movie cliché is that the view from a Parisian window always includes the tower.[77] In reality, since zoning restrictions limit the height of most buildings in Paris to seven storeys, only a small number of tall buildings have a clear view of the tower.[78]

 

Maintenance

Maintenance of the tower includes applying 60 tons of paint every seven years to prevent it from rusting. The tower has been completely repainted at least 19 times since it was built. Lead paint was still being used as recently as 2001 when the practice was stopped out of concern for the environment.[56][79]

  

Panorama of Paris from the Tour Eiffel

Panorama of Paris and its suburbs from the top of the Eiffel Tower

Tourism

Transport

The nearest Paris Métro station is Bir-Hakeim and the nearest RER station is Champ de Mars-Tour Eiffel.[80] The tower itself is located at the intersection of the quai Branly and the Pont d'Iéna.

 

Popularity

 

Number of visitors per year between 1889 and 2004

More than 250 million people have visited the tower since it was completed in 1889.[3] In 2015, there were 6.91 million visitors.[81] The tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world.[82] An average of 25,000 people ascend the tower every day which can result in long queues.[83]

 

Restaurants

The tower has two restaurants: Le 58 Tour Eiffel on the first level, and Le Jules Verne, a gourmet restaurant with its own lift on the second level. This restaurant has one star in the Michelin Red Guide. It was run by the multi-Michelin star chef Alain Ducasse from 2007 to 2017.[84] Starting May 2019, it will be managed by three star chef Frédéric Anton.[85] It owes its name to the famous science-fiction writer Jules Verne. Additionally, there is a champagne bar at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

 

From 1937 until 1981, there was a restaurant near the top of the tower. It was removed due to structural considerations; engineers had determined it was too heavy and was causing the tower to sag.[86] This restaurant was sold to an American restaurateur and transported to New York and then New Orleans. It was rebuilt on the edge of New Orleans' Garden District as a restaurant and later event hall.[87]

 

Replicas

 

Replica at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel, Nevada, United States.

Main article: List of Eiffel Tower replicas

As one of the most iconic landmarks in the world, the Eiffel Tower has been the inspiration for the creation of many replicas and similar towers. An early example is Blackpool Tower in England. The mayor of Blackpool, Sir John Bickerstaffe, was so impressed on seeing the Eiffel Tower at the 1889 exposition that he commissioned a similar tower to be built in his town. It opened in 1894 and is 158.1 m (518 ft) tall.[88] Tokyo Tower in Japan, built as a communications tower in 1958, was also inspired by the Eiffel Tower.[89]

 

There are various scale models of the tower in the United States, including a half-scale version at the Paris Las Vegas, Nevada, one in Paris, Texas built in 1993, and two 1:3 scale models at Kings Island, located in Mason, Ohio, and Kings Dominion, Virginia, amusement parks opened in 1972 and 1975 respectively. Two 1:3 scale models can be found in China, one in Durango, Mexico that was donated by the local French community, and several across Europe.[90]

 

In 2011, the TV show Pricing the Priceless on the National Geographic Channel speculated that a full-size replica of the tower would cost approximately US$480 million to build.[91] This would be more than ten times the cost of the original (nearly 8 million in 1890 Francs; ~US$40 million in 2018 dollars).

 

Communications

 

Top of the Eiffel Tower

The tower has been used for making radio transmissions since the beginning of the 20th century. Until the 1950s, sets of aerial wires ran from the cupola to anchors on the Avenue de Suffren and Champ de Mars. These were connected to longwave transmitters in small bunkers. In 1909, a permanent underground radio centre was built near the south pillar, which still exists today. On 20 November 1913, the Paris Observatory, using the Eiffel Tower as an aerial, exchanged wireless signals with the United States Naval Observatory, which used an aerial in Arlington, Virginia. The object of the transmissions was to measure the difference in longitude between Paris and Washington, D.C..[92] Today, radio and digital television signals are transmitted from the Eiffel Tower.

 

FM radio

FrequencykWService

87.8 MHz10France Inter

89.0 MHz10RFI Paris

89.9 MHz6TSF Jazz

90.4 MHz10Nostalgie

90.9 MHz4Chante France

Digital television

A television antenna was first installed on the tower in 1957, increasing its height by 18.7 m (61.4 ft). Work carried out in 2000 added a further 5.3 m (17.4 ft), giving the current height of 324 m (1,063 ft).[56] Analogue television signals from the Eiffel Tower ceased on 8 March 2011.

 

FrequencyVHFUHFkWService

182.25 MHz6—100Canal+

479.25 MHz—22500France 2

503.25 MHz—25500TF1

527.25 MHz—28500France 3

543.25 MHz—30100France 5

567.25 MHz—33100M6

Illumination copyright

Further information: Freedom of panorama § France

 

The Eiffel Tower illuminated in 2015

The tower and its image have been in the public domain since 1993, 70 years after Eiffel's death.[93] In June 1990 a French court ruled that a special lighting display on the tower in 1989 to mark the tower's 100th anniversary was an "original visual creation" protected by copyright. The Court of Cassation, France's judicial court of last resort, upheld the ruling in March 1992.[94] The Société d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE) now considers any illumination of the tower to be a separate work of art that falls under copyright.[95] As a result, the SNTE alleges that it is illegal to publish contemporary photographs of the lit tower at night without permission in France and some other countries for commercial use.[96][97] For this reason, it is often rare to find images or videos of the lit tower at night on stock image sites,[98] and media outlets rarely broadcast images or videos of it.[99]

 

The imposition of copyright has been controversial. The Director of Documentation for what was then called the Société Nouvelle d'exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SNTE), Stéphane Dieu, commented in 2005: "It is really just a way to manage commercial use of the image, so that it isn't used in ways [of which] we don't approve".[100] SNTE made over €1 million from copyright fees in 2002.[101] However, it could also be used to restrict the publication of tourist photographs of the tower at night, as well as hindering non-profit and semi-commercial publication of images of the illuminated tower.[102]

 

The copyright claim itself has never been tested in courts to date according to the 2014 article of the Art Law Journal, and there has never been an attempt to track down millions of netizens who have posted and shared their images of the illuminated tower on the Internet worldwide. It added, however, that permissive situation may arise on commercial use of such images, like in a magazine, on a film poster, or on product packaging.[103]

 

French doctrine and jurisprudence allows pictures incorporating a copyrighted work as long as their presence is incidental or accessory to the subject being represented,[104] a reasoning akin to the de minimis rule. Therefore, SETE may be unable to claim copyright on photographs of Paris which happen to include the lit tower.

 

Height changes

The pinnacle height of the Eiffel Tower has changed multiple times over the years as described in the chart below.[105]

 

FromToHeight mHeight ftType of additionRemarks

18891957312.271,025FlagpoleArchitectural height of 300 m 984 ft. Tallest freestanding structure in the world until surpassed by the Chrysler building in 1930. Tallest tower in the world until surpassed by the KCTV Broadcast Tower in 1956.

19571991320.751,052AntennaBroadcast antenna added in 1957 which made it the tallest tower in the world until the Tokyo Tower was completed the following year in 1958.

19911994317.961,043Antenna change

19942000318.71,046Antenna change

2000Current3241,063Antenna change

Taller structures

The Eiffel Tower was the world's tallest structure when completed in 1889, a distinction it retained until 1929 when the Chrysler Building in New York City was topped out.[106] The tower also lost its standing as the world's tallest tower to the Tokyo Tower in 1958 but retains its status as the tallest freestanding (non-guyed) structure in France.

 

Lattice towers taller than the Eiffel Tower

Further information: List of tallest towers in the world, Lattice tower, and Observation deck

NamePinnacle heightYearCountryTownRemarks

Tokyo Skytree634 m (2,080 ft)2011JapanTokyo

Kyiv TV Tower385 m (1,263 ft)1973UkraineKyiv

Dragon Tower336 m (1,102 ft)2000ChinaHarbin

Tokyo Tower333 m (1,093 ft)1958JapanTokyo

WITI TV Tower329.4 m (1,081 ft)1962United StatesShorewood, Wisconsin

St. Petersburg TV Tower326 m (1,070 ft)1962RussiaSaint Petersburg

Structures in France taller than the Eiffel Tower

Further information: List of tallest structures in France

NamePinnacle heightYearStructure typeTownRemarks

Longwave transmitter Allouis350 m (1,150 ft)1974Guyed mastAllouis

HWU transmitter350 m (1,150 ft)1971Guyed mastRosnayMilitary VLF transmitter; multiple masts

Viaduc de Millau343 m (1,125 ft)2004Bridge pillarMillau

TV Mast Niort-Maisonnay330 m (1,080 ft)1978Guyed mastNiort

Transmitter Le Mans-Mayet342 m (1,122 ft)1993Guyed mastMayet

La Regine transmitter330 m (1,080 ft)1973Guyed mastSaissacMilitary VLF transmitter

Transmitter Roumoules330 m (1,080 ft)1974Guyed mastRoumoulesSpare transmission mast for longwave; insulated against ground

See also

flagFrance portal

Eiffel Tower in popular culture

List of tallest buildings and structures in the Paris region

List of tallest buildings and structures in the world

List of tallest towers in the world

List of tallest freestanding structures in the world

List of tallest freestanding steel structures

List of transmission sites

Lattice tower

Eiffel Tower, 1909–1928 painting series by Robert Delaunay

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Harriss, Joseph (1975). The Eiffel Tower: Symbol of an Age. London: Paul Elek. ISBN 0236400363.

Harvie, David I. (2006). Eiffel: The Genius Who Reinvented Himself. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton. ISBN 0-7509-3309-7.

Jonnes, Jill (2009). Eiffel's Tower: The Thrilling Story Behind Paris's Beloved Monument …. Penguin. ISBN 978-1-101-05251-8.

Loyrette, Henri (1985). Eiffel, un Ingenieur et Son Oeuvre. Rizzoli. ISBN 978-0-8478-0631-7.

Musée d'Orsay (1989). 1889: la Tour Eiffel et l'Exposition Universelle. Editions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Ministère de la Culture, de la Communication, des Grands Travaux et du Bicentenaire. ISBN 978-2-7118-2244-7.

Vogel, Robert M. (1961). "Elevator Systems of the Eiffel Tower, 1889". United States National Museum Bulletin. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. 228: 20–21.

Watson, William (1892). Paris Universal Exposition: Civil Engineering, Public Works, and Architecture. Washington, D.C.: Government Publishing Office.

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Tightrope walking

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"Tightrope" redirects here. For other uses, see Tightrope (disambiguation).

 

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The feet of a tightrope walker

Tightrope walking, also called funambulism, is the skill of walking along a thin wire or rope. It has a long tradition in various countries and is commonly associated with the circus. Other skills similar to tightrope walking include slack rope walking and slacklining.

  

Contents

1Types

2Ropes

3Biomechanics

4Famous tightrope artists

5Metaphorical use

6See also

7References

Types

 

Tightrope walking, Armenian manuscript, 1688

Tightwire is the skill of maintaining balance while walking along a tensioned wire between two points. It can be done either using a balancing tool (umbrella, fan, balance pole, etc.) or "freehand", using only one's body to maintain balance. Typically, tightwire performances either include dance or object manipulation. Object manipulation acts include a variety of props in their acts, such as clubs, rings, hats, or canes. Tightwire performers have even used wheelbarrows with passengers, ladders, and animals in their act. The technique to maintain balance is to keep the performer's centre of mass above their support point—usually their feet.

 

Highwire is a form of tightwire walking but performed at much greater height. Although there is no official height when tightwire becomes highwire, generally a wire over 20 feet (6 m) high are regarded as a highwire act.

 

Skywalk is a form of highwire which is performed at great heights and length. A skywalk is performed outdoors between tall building, gorges, across waterfalls or other natural and man-made structures.

 

Ropes

If the "lay" of the rope (the orientation of the constituent strands, the "twist" of a rope) is in one direction, the rope can twist on itself as it stretches and relaxes. Underfoot, this could be hazardous to disastrous in a tightrope. One solution is for the rope core to be made of steel cable, laid in the opposite direction to the outer layers, so that twisting forces balance each other out.

 

Biomechanics

Acrobats maintain their balance by positioning their centre of mass directly over their base of support, i.e. shifting most of their weight over their legs, arms, or whatever part of their body they are using to hold them up. When they are on the ground with their feet side by side, the base of support is wide in the lateral direction but narrow in the sagittal (back-to-front) direction. In the case of highwire-walkers, their feet are parallel with each other, one foot positioned in front of the other while on the wire. Therefore, a tightwire walker's sway is side to side, their lateral support having been drastically reduced. In both cases, whether side by side or parallel, the ankle is the pivot point.

 

A wire-walker may use a pole for balance or may stretch out his arms perpendicular to his trunk in the manner of a pole. This technique provides several advantages. It distributes mass away from the pivot point, thereby increasing the moment of inertia. This reduces angular acceleration, so a greater torque is required to rotate the performer over the wire. The result is less tipping. In addition, the performer can also correct sway by rotating the pole. This will create an equal and opposite torque on the body.

 

Tightwire-walkers typically perform in very thin and flexible, leather-soled slippers with a full-length suede or leather sole to protect the feet from abrasions and bruises, while still allowing the foot to curve around the wire. Though very infrequent in performance, amateur, hobbyist, or inexperienced funambulists will often walk barefoot so that the wire can be grasped between the big and second toe. This is more often done when using a rope, as the softer and silkier fibres are less taxing on the bare foot than the harder and more abrasive braided wire.

 

Famous tightrope artists

 

Maria Spelterini crossing Niagara Falls on July 4, 1876

 

Jultagi, the Korean tradition of tightrope walking

Charles Blondin, a.k.a. Jean-François Gravelet, crossed the Niagara Falls many times

Robert Cadman, early 18th-century British highwire walker and ropeslider

Jay Cochrane, Canadian, set multiple records for skywalking, including The Great China Skywalk[1] in Qutang Gorge, China, 639-metre-long (2,098 ft), 410-metre-high (1,340 ft) from one cliff wall to the opposite side above the Yangtze River; the longest blindfolded skywalk, 800-foot-long (240 m), 300-foot-high (91 m) in 1998, between the towers of the Flamingo Hilton in Las Vegas, Nevada, and broadcast on FOX Network's "Guinness World Records: Primetime" on Tuesday, February 23, 1999; In 2001, he became the first person to perform a skywalk in Niagara Falls, Canada, in more than a hundred years. His final performances took place during Skywalk 2012[2] with a world record submission[3] of 11.81 miles (19.01 km) in cumulative distance skywalking from the Skylon Tower at a height of 520 feet (160 m) traversing the 1,300 feet (400 m) highwire to the pinnacle of the Hilton Fallsview Hotel at 581 feet (177 m).

Con Colleano, Australian, "the Wizard of the Wire"

David Dimitri, Swiss highwire walker

Pablo Fanque, 19th-century British tightrope walker and "rope dancer", among other talents, although best known as the first black circus owner in Britain, and for his mention in the Beatles song, Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!

The Great Farini, a.k.a. Willie Hunt, crossed the Niagara Falls many times

Farrell Hettig, American highwire walker, started as a Wallenda team member, once held record for stee

The builder of this small apartment (or store room, or?) took full advantage of the cave-like niche in a big rock outcrop at the bottom of Little Ruin Canyon. Building there was not very different from tucking dwellings into cliff overhangs, but possibly even more protected from the elements.

They've taken in a lot of foster pets recently, as you can see!

The Postcard

 

A Valentine's Series postcard with photography by Lafayette of Dublin. The date of posting is not legible, but it was posted prior to the 3rd. June 1918, because the card only bears a half-penny stamp, and on the 3rd. June 1918, the UK inland postal rate for postcards was raised to one penny in order to help pay for the Great War.

 

The card was posted to:

 

Mr. E. King,

83, Winchelsea Road,

Tottenham,

London N.W.

 

The pencilled message on the divided back of the card was as follows:

 

"Dear Dad,

I hope you got back

alright on Sunday night.

I have been to school

today.

Aunt Mabel has not

been up today.

I went on the pond this

afternoon.

I wish you were with me.

Love from Violet & Mum.

xx"

 

Madame Sarah Bernhardt

 

Sarah Bernhardt was born Henriette-Rosine Bernard on the 22nd. or 23rd. October 1844. The exact date is not known.

 

Sarah was a French stage actress who starred in some of the most popular French plays of the late 19th. and early 20th. centuries, including 'La Dame Aux Camelias' by Alexandre Dumas, 'Ruy Blas' by Victor Hugo; 'Fédora' and 'La Tosca' by Victorien Sardou; and 'L'Aiglon' by Edmond Rostand.

 

Sarah also played male roles, including Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'.

 

Rostand called her "The Queen of the Pose and the Princess of the Gesture", while Hugo praised her "Golden Voice".

 

Sarah made several theatrical tours around the world, and was one of the first prominent actresses to make sound recordings and to act in motion pictures.

 

Sarah Bernhardt - The Early Years

 

Henriette-Rosine Bernard was born at 5 Rue de L'École-de-Médecine in the Latin Quarter of Paris. She was the illegitimate daughter of Judith Bernard, a Dutch-Jewish courtesan with a wealthy clientele.

 

The name of Sarah's father is not recorded. Bernhardt later wrote that her father's family paid for her education, insisted she be baptised as a Catholic, and left a large sum to be paid when she came of age. Her mother travelled frequently, and saw little of her daughter. She placed Sarah with a nurse in Brittany, then in a cottage in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine.

 

When Sarah was seven, her mother sent her to a boarding school for young ladies in the Paris suburb of Auteuil, paid with funds from her father's family. There, she acted in her first theatrical performance in the play 'Clothilde', where she held the role of the Queen of the Fairies, and performed the first of many dramatic death scenes.

 

While she was at the boarding school, Sarah's mother rose to the top ranks of Parisian courtesans, consorting with politicians, bankers, generals, and writers. Her patrons and friends included Charles, Duke of Morny, the half-brother of Emperor Napoleon III and President of the French legislature.

 

At the age of 10, with the sponsorship of Morny, Bernhardt was admitted to Grandchamp, an exclusive Augustine convent school near Versailles. At the convent, she performed the part of the Archangel Raphael in 'Tobias and the Angel'.

 

Sarah declared her intention to become a nun, but did not always follow convent rules; she was accused of sacrilege when she arranged a Christian burial, with a procession and ceremony, for her pet lizard.

 

She received her first communion as a Roman Catholic in 1856, and thereafter she was fervently religious. However, she never forgot her Jewish heritage. When asked years later by a reporter if she were a Christian, she replied:

 

"No, I'm a Roman Catholic, and a

member of the great Jewish race.

I'm waiting until Christians become

better."

 

Sarah accepted the last rites shortly before her death.

 

In 1859, Bernhardt learned that her father had died overseas. Her mother summoned a family council, including Morny, to decide what to do with her. Morny proposed that Bernhardt should become an actress, an idea that horrified Sarah, as she had never been inside a theatre.

 

Morny arranged for her to attend her first theatre performance at the Comédie Française in a party which included her mother, Morny, and his friend Alexandre Dumas Père. The play they attended was 'Brittanicus', by Jean Racine, followed by the classical comedy 'Amphitryon' by Plautus.

 

Bernhardt was so moved by the emotion of the play, she began to sob loudly, disturbing the rest of the audience. Morny and others in their party were angry with her and left, but Dumas comforted her, and later told Morny that he believed that she was destined for the stage. After the performance, Dumas called her "My little star".

 

Sarah Bernhardt and the Paris Conservatory

 

Morny used his influence with the composer Daniel Auber, the head of the Paris Conservatory, to arrange for Bernhardt to audition. She began preparing, as she described it in her memoirs:

 

"With that vivid exaggeration with

which I embrace any new enterprise."

 

Dumas coached her. The jury comprised Auber and five leading actors and actresses from the Comédie Française. Sarah was supposed to recite verses from Racine, but no one had told her that she needed someone to give her cues as she recited.

 

Sarah told the jury she would instead recite the fable of the Two Pigeons by La Fontaine. The jurors were sceptical, but the fervour and pathos of her recitation won them over, and she was invited to become a student.

 

Bernhardt studied acting at the Conservatory from January 1860 until 1862 under two prominent actors of the Comédie Française, Joseph-Isidore Samson and Jean-Baptiste Provost. She wrote in her memoirs that Provost taught her diction and grand gestures, while Samson taught her the power of simplicity.

 

For the stage, Sarah changed her name from 'Bernard' to 'Bernhardt'. While studying, she also received her first marriage proposal, from a wealthy businessman who offered her 500 thousand francs. He wept when she refused. Bernhardt later wrote:

 

"I was confused, sorry, and delighted -

because he loved me the way people

love in plays at the theatre".

 

Before the first examination for her tragedy class, she tried to straighten her abundance of frizzy hair, which made it even more uncontrollable, and came down with a bad cold, which made her voice so nasal that she hardly recognized it.

 

Furthermore, the parts assigned for her performance were classical and required carefully stylized emotions, while she preferred romanticism and fully and naturally expressing her emotions. The teachers ranked her 14th. in tragedy, and 2nd. in comedy.

 

Sarah Bernhardt and The Théâtre Français

 

Once again, Morny came to her rescue. He put in a good word for her with the National Minister of the Arts, Camille Doucet. Doucet recommended her to Edouard Thierry, the chief administrator of the Théâtre Français, who offered Bernhardt a place as a pensionnaire at the theatre, at a minimum salary.

 

Bernhardt made her debut with the company on the 31st. August 1862 in the title role of Racine's 'Iphigénie'. Her premiere was not a success. She experienced stage fright and rushed her lines. Furthermore some audience members made fun of her thin figure.

 

When the performance ended, Provost was waiting in the wings, and she asked his forgiveness. He told her:

 

"I can forgive you, and you'll

eventually forgive yourself,

but Racine in his grave never

will."

 

Francisque Sarcey, the influential theatre critic of 'L'Opinion Nationale' and 'Le Temps', wrote:

 

'She carries herself well and pronounces

with perfect precision. That is all that can

be said about her at the moment.'

 

Bernhardt did not remain long with the Comédie-Française. She played Henrietta in Molière's 'Les Femmes Savantes' and Hippolyte in 'L'Étourdi', and the title role in Scribe's 'Valérie', but did not impress the critics, or the other members of the company, who had resented her rapid rise.

 

The weeks passed, but she was given no further roles. Her hot temper also got her into trouble; when a theatre doorkeeper addressed her as "Little Bernhardt", she broke her umbrella over his head. She apologised profusely, and when the doorkeeper retired 20 years later, she bought him a cottage in Normandy.

 

At a ceremony honouring the birthday of Molière on the 15th. January 1863, Bernhardt invited her younger sister, Regina, to accompany her. Regina accidentally stood on the train of the gown of a leading actress of the company, Zaire-Nathalie Martel (1816–1885). Madame Nathalie pushed Regina off the gown, causing her to strike a stone column and gash her forehead.

 

Regina and Madame Nathalie began shouting at one another, and Bernhardt stepped forward and slapped Madame Nathalie on the cheek. The older actress fell onto another actor. Thierry asked that Bernhardt apologise to Madame Nathalie. Bernhardt refused to do so until Madame Nathalie apologised to Regina.

 

Bernhardt had already been scheduled for a new role with the theatre, and had begun rehearsals. Madame Nathalie demanded that Bernhardt be dropped from the role unless she apologised. Since neither would yield, and Madame Nathalie was the more senior member of the company, Thierry was forced to ask Bernhardt to leave.

 

The Gymnase and Brussels (1864–1866)

 

Sarah's family could not understand her departure from the theatre; it was inconceivable to them that anyone would walk away from the most prestigious theatre in Paris at the age of 18.

 

Instead, Sarah went to a popular theatre, the Gymnase, where she became an understudy to two of the leading actresses. She almost immediately caused another offstage scandal, when she was invited to recite poetry at a reception at the Tuileries Palace hosted by Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie, along with other actors from the Gymnase.

 

Sarah chose to recite two romantic poems by Victor Hugo, unaware that Hugo was a bitter critic of the Emperor. Following the first poem, the Emperor and Empress rose and walked out, followed by the court and all the other guests.

 

Her next role at the Gymnase, as a foolish Russian princess, was entirely unsuited for her; her mother told her that her performance was "ridiculous". She decided abruptly to quit the theatre to travel, and like her mother, to take on lovers. She went briefly to Spain, then, at the suggestion of Alexandre Dumas, to Belgium.

 

Sarah carried to Brussels letters of introduction from Dumas, and was admitted to the highest levels of society. She attended a masked ball in Brussels where she met the Belgian aristocrat Henri, Prince de Ligne, and had an affair with him. However the affair was cut short when she learned that her mother had suffered a heart attack. She returned to Paris, where she found that her mother was better, but that she herself was pregnant from her affair with the Prince.

 

She did not notify the Prince. Her mother did not want the fatherless child born under her roof, so Sarah moved to a small apartment on Rue Duphot, and on the 22nd. December 1864, the 20-year-old actress gave birth to her only child, Maurice Bernhardt.

 

Sarah never discussed Maurice's parentage with anyone. When asked who his father was, she sometimes answered:

 

"I could never make up my mind

whether his father was Gambetta,

Victor Hugo, or General Boulanger."

 

Many years later, in January 1885, when Bernhardt was famous, the Prince came to Paris and offered to formally recognise Maurice as his son, but Maurice politely declined, explaining he was entirely satisfied to be the son of Sarah Bernhardt.

 

Sarah Bernhardt and the Théâtre de l'Odéon (1866–1872)

 

To support herself after the birth of Maurice, Bernhardt played minor roles and understudies at the Porte-Saint-Martin, a popular melodrama theatre.

 

In early 1866, she obtained a reading with Felix Duquesnel, director of the Théâtre de L’Odéon on the Left Bank. Duquesnel described the reading years later, saying:

 

"I had before me a creature who

was marvellously gifted, intelligent

to the point of genius, with enormous

energy under an appearance frail and

delicate, and a savage will."

 

The co-director of the theatre, Charles de Chilly, wanted to reject Sarah as unreliable and too thin, but Duquesnel was enchanted; he hired her for the theatre at a modest salary of 150 francs a month, which he paid out of his own pocket.

 

The Odéon was second in prestige only to the Comédie Française, and unlike that very traditional theatre, specialised in more modern productions. The Odéon was popular with the students of the Left Bank.

 

Sarah's first performances at the Odéon were not successful. She was cast in highly stylised and frivolous 18th.-century comedies, whereas her strong point on stage was her complete sincerity.

 

Sarah's thin figure also made her look ridiculous in the ornate costumes. Dumas, her strongest supporter, commented after one performance:

 

"She has the head of a virgin

and the body of a broomstick."

 

Soon, however, with different plays and more experience, her performances improved; Sarah was praised for her performance of Cordelia in 'King Lear'. In June 1867, she played two roles in 'Athalie' by Jean Racine: the part of a young woman and a young boy, Zacharie, the first of many male parts she played in her career. The influential critic Sarcey wrote

 

'She charmed her audience

like a little Orpheus.'

 

Sarah's breakthrough performance was in the 1868 revival of 'Kean' by Alexandre Dumas, in which she played the female lead part of Anna Danby. The play was interrupted in the beginning by disturbances in the audience by young spectators who called out:

 

"Down with Dumas!

Give us Hugo!"

 

Bernhardt addressed the audience directly:

 

"Friends, you wish to defend the

cause of justice. Are you doing it

by making Monsieur Dumas

responsible for the banishment of

Monsieur Hugo?"

 

With this, the audience laughed and applauded, and then fell silent. At the final curtain, she received an enormous ovation, and Dumas hurried backstage to congratulate her. When she exited the theatre, a crowd had gathered at the stage door and tossed flowers at her. Her salary was immediately raised to 250 francs a month.

 

Sarah's next success was her performance in François Coppée's 'Le Passant', which premiered at the Odéon on the 14th. January 1868, playing the part of the boy troubadour, Zanetto, in a romantic renaissance tale. Critic Theophile Gautier described the 'delicate and tender charm' of her performance.

 

'Le Passant' played for 150 performances, plus a command performance at the Tuileries Palace for Napoleon III and his court. Afterwards, the Emperor sent her a brooch with his initials written in diamonds.

 

In her memoirs, Sarah wrote of her time at the Odéon:

 

"It was the theatre that I loved the most,

and that I only left with regret. We all

loved each other. Everyone was gay.

The theatre was a like a continuation of

school. All the young came there...

I remember my few months at the

Comédie Française. That little world was

stiff, gossipy, jealous.

I remember my few months at the Gymnase.

There they talked only about dresses and

hats, and chattered about a hundred things

that had nothing to do with art.

At the Odéon, I was happy. We thought only

of putting on plays. We rehearsed mornings,

afternoons, all the time. I adored that."

 

Bernhardt lived with her longtime friend and assistant Madame Guerard and her son in a small cottage in the suburb of Auteuil, and drove herself to the theatre in a small carriage. She developed a close friendship with the writer George Sand, and performed in two plays that she had written.

 

Sarah received celebrities in her dressing room, including Gustave Flaubert and Leon Gambetta. In 1869, as she became more prosperous, she moved to a larger seven-room apartment at 16 Rue Auber in the centre of Paris. Her mother began to visit her for the first time in years, and her Orthodox Jewish grandmother moved into the apartment to take care of Maurice.

 

Bernhardt added a maid and a cook to her household, as well as the beginning of a collection of animals; she had one or two dogs with her at all times, and two turtles moved freely around the apartment.

 

In 1868, a fire completely destroyed Sarah's apartment, along with all of her belongings. She had neglected to purchase insurance. The brooch presented to her by the Emperor and her pearls melted, as did the tiara presented by one of her lovers, Khalid Bey. She found the diamonds in the ashes.

 

The managers of the Odéon organized a benefit performance for Sarah. The most famous soprano of the time, Adelina Patti, performed for free. In addition, the grandmother of her father donated 120,000 francs. Bernhardt was able to buy an even larger residence, with two salons and a large dining room, at 4 Rue de Rome.

 

Sarah Bernhardt's Wartime service at the Odéon (1870–1871)

 

The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War abruptly interrupted Sarah's theatrical career. The news of the defeat of the French Army, the surrender of Napoleon III at Sedan, and the proclamation of the Third French Republic on the 4th. September 1870 was followed by a siege of the city of Paris by the Prussian Army.

 

Paris was cut off from news and from its food supply, and the theatres were closed. Bernhardt took charge of converting the Odéon into a hospital for soldiers wounded in the battles outside the city. She organized the placement of 32 beds in the lobby and in the foyers, brought in her personal chef to prepare soup for the patients, and persuaded her wealthy friends and admirers to donate supplies to the hospital.

 

Besides organising the hospital, Sarah worked as a nurse, assisting the chief surgeon with amputations and operations. When the coal supply of the city ran out, Bernhardt used old scenery, benches, and stage props for fuel to heat the theatre. In early January 1871, after 16 weeks of siege, the Germans began to bombard the city with long-range artillery. The patients had to be moved to the cellar, and before long, the hospital was forced to close.

 

Bernhardt arranged for serious cases to be transferred to another military hospital, and she rented an apartment on Rue de Provence to house the remaining 20 patients. By the end of the siege, Bernhardt's hospital had cared for more than 150 wounded soldiers, including a young undergraduate from the École Polytechnique, Ferdinand Foch, who later commanded the Allied armies in the First World War.

 

The French government signed an armistice on the 19th. January 1871, and Bernhardt learned that her son and family had been moved to Hamburg. She went to the new chief executive of the French Republic, Adolphe Thiers, and obtained a pass to go to Germany to bring them back.

 

When she returned to Paris several weeks later, the city was under the rule of the Paris Commune. She moved again, taking her family to Saint-Germain-en-Laye. She later returned to her apartment on the Rue de Rome in May, after the Commune was defeated by the French Army.

 

The Tuileries Palace, the City Hall of Paris, and many other public buildings had been burned by the Commune or damaged in the fighting, but the Odéon was still intact.

 

Charles-Marie Chilly, the co-director of the Odéon, came to her apartment, where Bernhardt received him reclining on a sofa. He announced that the theatre would re-open in October 1871, and he asked her to play the lead in a new play, 'Jean-Marie' by André Theuriet. Bernhardt replied that she was finished with the theatre, and was going to move to Brittany in order to start a farm.

 

Chilly, who knew Bernhardt's moods well, told her that he understood and accepted her decision, and would give the role to Jane Essler, a rival actress. According to Chilly, Bernhardt immediately jumped up from the sofa and asked:

 

"When are the rehearsals beginning?"

 

'Jean-Marie', featuring a young Breton woman forced by her father to marry an old man she did not love, was another critical and popular success for Bernhardt. The critic Sarcey wrote:

 

'She has the sovereign grace, the

penetrating charm, the I don't

know what. She is a natural artist,

an incomparable artist.'

 

The directors of the Odéon next decided to stage 'Ruy Blas', a play written by Victor Hugo in 1838, with Bernhardt playing the role of the Queen of Spain. Hugo himself attended all the rehearsals. At first, Bernhardt pretended to be indifferent to him, but he gradually won her over, and she became a fervent admirer.

 

The play premiered on the 16th. January 1872. The opening night was attended by the Prince of Wales and by Hugo himself; after the performance, Hugo approached Bernhardt, dropped to one knee, and kissed her hand. After the 100th. performance of 'Ruy Blas', Hugo gave a dinner for Bernhardt and her friends, toasting:

 

"My adorable Queen

and her Golden Voice."

 

'Ruy Blas' played to packed houses. A few months after it opened, Bernhardt received an invitation from Emile Perrin, Director of the Comédie Française, asking if she would return, and offering her 12,000 francs a year, compared with less than 10,000 at the Odéon. Bernhardt asked Chilly if he would match the offer, but he refused.

 

Always pressed by her growing expenses and growing household to earn more money, she announced her departure from the Odéon when she finished the run of 'Ruy Blas'. Chilly responded with a lawsuit, and she was forced to pay 6,000 francs in damages.

 

Sarah Bernhardt and the Comédie Française

 

Sarah returned to the Comédie Française on the 1st. October 1872, and quickly took on some of the most famous and demanding roles in French theatre. She played Junie in 'Britannicus' by Jean Racine, the male role of Cherubin in 'The Marriage of Figaro' by Pierre Beaumarchais, and the lead in Voltaire's five-act tragedy 'Zaïre'.

 

In 1873, with just 74 hours to learn the lines and practise the part, Sarah played the lead in Racine's 'Phédre', playing opposite the celebrated tragedian, Jean Mounet-Sully, who soon became her lover. The leading French critic Sarcey wrote:

 

'This is nature itself served by marvellous

intelligence, by a soul of fire, by the most

melodious voice that ever enchanted

human ears. This woman plays with her

heart, with her entrails.'

 

Phédre became her most famous classical role, performed over the years around the world, often for audiences who knew little or no French; she made them understand by her voice and gestures.

 

In 1877, Sarah had another success as Dona Sol in 'Hernani', a tragedy written 47 years earlier by Victor Hugo. Her lover in the play was her lover off-stage, as well, Mounet-Sully. Hugo himself was in the audience. The next day, he sent her a note:

 

"Madame, you were great and charming;

you moved me, me the old warrior, and,

at a certain moment when the public,

touched and enchanted by you, applauded,

I wept. The tear which you caused me to

shed is yours. I place it at your feet."

 

The note was accompanied by a tear-shaped pearl on a gold bracelet.

 

Sarah maintained a highly theatrical lifestyle in her house on the Rue de Rome. She kept a satin-lined coffin in her bedroom, and occasionally slept in it, or lay in it to study her roles, though, contrary to popular belief, she never took it with her on her travels.

 

Sarah cared for her younger sister who was ill with tuberculosis, and allowed her to sleep in her own bed, while she slept in the coffin. She posed in it for photographs, adding to the legends she created about herself.

 

Bernhardt repaired her old relationships with the other members of the Comédie Française; she participated in a benefit for Madame Nathalie, the actress she had once slapped. However, she was frequently in conflict with Perrin, the director of the theater.

 

In 1878, during the Paris Universal Exposition, she took a flight over Paris with balloonist Pierre Giffard, in a balloon decorated with the name of her current character, Dona Sol. However, an unexpected storm carried the balloon far outside of Paris to a small town.

 

When she returned by train to the city, Perrin was furious; he fined Bernhardt a thousand francs, citing a theatre rule which required actors to request permission before they left Paris. Bernhardt refused to pay, and threatened to resign from the Comédie. Perrin recognised that he could not afford to let her go. Perrin and the Minister of Fine Arts arranged a compromise; she withdrew her resignation, and in return was raised to a Societaire, the highest rank of the theatre.

 

Triumph in London and Departure from the Comédie Française (1879–1880)

 

Bernhardt was earning a substantial amount at the theatre, but her expenses were even greater. By this time she had eight servants, and she built her first house, an imposing mansion on rue Fortuny, not far from the Parc Monceau. She looked for additional ways to earn money.

 

In June 1879, while the theatre of the Comédie Française in Paris was being remodelled, Perrin took the company on tour to London. Shortly before the tour began, a British theatre impresario named Edward Jarrett travelled to Paris and proposed that she give private performances in the homes of wealthy Londoners; the fee she would receive for each performance was greater than her monthly salary with the Comédie.

 

When Perrin read in the press about the private performances, he was furious. Furthermore, the Gaiety Theatre in London demanded that Bernhardt star in the opening performance, contrary to the traditions of Comédie Française, where roles were assigned by seniority, and the idea of stardom was scorned.

 

When Perrin protested, saying that Bernhardt was only 10th. or 11th. in seniority, the Gaiety manager threatened to cancel the performance; Perrin had to give in. He scheduled Bernhardt to perform one act of 'Phèdre' on the opening night, between two traditional French comedies, 'Le Misanthrope' and 'Les Précieuses'.

 

On the 4th. June 1879, just before the opening curtain of her premiere in 'Phèdre', she suffered an attack of stage fright. She wrote later that she also pitched her voice too high, and was unable to lower it. Nonetheless, the performance was a triumph. Though most of the audience could not understand Racine's classical French, she captivated them with her voice and gestures; one member of the audience, Sir George Arthur, wrote that:

 

"She set every nerve and fibre in

their bodies throbbing, and held

them spellbound."

 

In addition to her performances of 'Zaire', 'Phèdre', 'Hernani', and other plays with her troupe, she gave the private recitals in the homes of British aristocrats arranged by Jarrett, who also arranged an exhibition of her sculptures and paintings in Piccadilly. This was attended by both the Prince of Wales and Prime Minister Gladstone.

 

While in London, Sarah added to her personal menagerie of animals by buying three dogs, a parrot, and a monkey. She also made a side trip to Liverpool, where she purchased a cheetah, a parrot, and a wolfhound, as well as receiving a gift of six chameleons, which she kept in her rented house on Chester Square, before taking them all back to Paris.

 

Having returned to Paris, Sarah was increasingly discontented with Perrin and the management of the Comédie Française. He insisted that she perform the lead in a new play, 'L'Aventurière' by Emile Augier, a play which she thought was mediocre. When she rehearsed the play without enthusiasm, and frequently forgot her lines, she was criticised by the playwright.

 

She responded:

 

"I know I'm bad, but not

as bad as your lines."

 

The play went ahead, but was a failure. She wrote immediately to Perrin:

 

"You forced me to play when I

was not ready... what I foresaw

came to pass... this is my first

failure at the Comédie and my

last."

 

Sarah sent a resignation letter to Perrin, made copies, and sent them to all the major newspapers. Perrin sued her for breach of contract; the court ordered her to pay 100,000 francs, plus interest, and she lost her accrued pension of 43,000 francs. She did not settle the debt until 1900.

 

Later, however, when the Comédie Française theatre was nearly destroyed by fire, she allowed her old troupe to use her own theatre.

 

'La Dame aux Camélias' and the first American tour (1880–1881)

 

In April 1880, as soon as he learned Bernhardt had resigned from the Comédie Française, the impresario Edward Jarrett hurried to Paris and proposed that she make a theatrical tour of England and then the United States. She could select her repertoire and the cast. She would receive 5,000 francs per performance, plus 15% of any earnings over 150,000 francs, plus all of her expenses, plus an account in her name for 100,000 francs, the amount she owed to the Comédie Française. Sarah accepted immediately.

 

Now on her own, Bernhardt first assembled and tried out her new troupe at the Théâtre de la Gaîté-Lyrique in Paris. She performed for the first time 'La Dame aux Camélias', by Alexandre Dumas. She did not create the role; the play had first been performed by Eugénie Dochein in 1852, but it quickly became Sarah's most performed and most famous role. She eventually played the role more than a thousand times, and acted regularly and successfully in it until the end of her life. Audiences were often in tears during her famous death scene at the end.

 

Sarah could not perform 'La Dame aux Camélias' on a London stage because of British censorship laws; instead, she put on four of her proven successes, including 'Hernani' and 'Phèdre', plus four new roles, including 'Adrienne Lecouvreur' by Eugène Scribe and the drawing-room comedy 'Frou-Frou' by Meilhac-Halévy, both of which were highly successful in London.

 

In six of the eight plays in her repertoire, Sarah died dramatically in the final act. When she returned to Paris from London, the Comédie Française asked her to come back, but she refused their offer, explaining that she was making far more money on her own. Instead, she took her new company and new plays on tour to Brussels and Copenhagen, and then on a tour of French provincial cities.

 

Sarah and her troupe departed from Le Havre for America on the 15th. October 1880, arriving in New York on the 27th. October. On the 8th. November, she performed Scribe's 'Adrienne Lecouvreur' at Booth's Theatre before an audience which had paid a top price of $40 for a ticket, an enormous sum at the time.

 

Few in the audience understood French, but it was not necessary; her gestures and voice captivated the audience, and she received a thunderous ovation. She thanked the audience with her distinctive curtain call; she did not bow, but stood perfectly still, with her hands clasped under her chin, or with her palms on her cheeks, and then suddenly stretched them out to the audience.

 

After her first performance in New York, she made 27 curtain calls. However, although she was welcomed by theatre-goers, she was entirely ignored by New York high society, who considered her personal life scandalous.

 

Bernhardt's first American tour carried her to 157 performances in 51 cities. She travelled on a special train with her own luxurious palace car, which carried her two maids, two cooks, a waiter, her maitre d'hôtel, and her personal assistant, Madame Guérard. It also carried an actor named Édouard Angelo whom she had selected to serve as her leading man, and, according to most accounts, her lover during the tour.

 

From New York, Sarah made a side trip to Menlo Park, where she met Thomas Edison, who made a brief recording of her reciting a verse from Phèdre, which has not survived. She crisscrossed the United States and Canada from Montreal and Toronto to Saint Louis and New Orleans, usually performing each evening, and departing immediately after the performance.

 

Sarah gave countless press interviews, and in Boston posed for photos on the back of a dead whale. She was condemned as immoral by the Bishop of Montreal and by the Methodist press, which only increased ticket sales.

 

Sarah performed 'Phèdre' six times and 'La Dame aux Camélias' 65 times (which Jarrett had renamed 'Camille' to make it easier for Americans to pronounce, despite the fact that no character in the play has that name).

 

On the 3rd. May 1881, Sarah gave her final performance of 'La Dame aux Camélias' in New York. Throughout her life, she always insisted on being paid in cash. When Bernhardt returned to France, she brought with her a chest filled with $194,000 in gold coins. She described the result of her trip to her friends:

 

"I crossed the oceans, carrying my

dream of art in myself, and the genius

of my nation triumphed.

I planted the French verb in the heart

of a foreign literature, and it is that of

which I am most proud."

 

Return to Paris, European tour, Fédora to Theodora (1881–1886)

 

No crowd greeted Bernhardt when she returned to Paris on the 5th. May 1881, and theatre managers offered no new roles; the Paris press ignored her tour, and much of the Paris theatre world resented her leaving the most prestigious national theatre to earn a fortune abroad.

 

When no new plays or offers appeared, she went to London for a successful three-week run at the Gaiety Theatre. This London tour included the first British performance of 'La Dame aux Camelias' at the Shaftesbury Theatre; her friend, the Prince of Wales, had persuaded Queen Victoria to authorise the performance. Many years later, Sarah gave a private performance of the play for the Queen while she was on holiday in Nice.

 

When she returned to Paris, Bernhardt contrived to make a surprise performance at the annual 14th. July patriotic spectacle at the Paris Opera, which was attended by the President of France, and a houseful of dignitaries and celebrities.

 

Sarah recited the Marseillaise, dressed in a white robe with a tricolor banner, and at the end dramatically waved the French flag. The audience gave her a standing ovation, showered her with flowers, and demanded that she recite the song two more times.

 

With her place in the French theatre world restored, Bernhardt negotiated a contract to perform at the Vaudeville Theatre in Paris for 1,500 francs per performance, as well as 25 percent of the net profit. She also announced that she would not be available to begin until 1882.

 

She departed on a tour of theatres in the French provinces, and then on to Italy, Greece, Hungary, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Austria, and Russia. In Kiev and Odessa, she encountered anti-Semitic crowds who threw stones at her; pogroms were being conducted, forcing the Jewish population to leave.

 

However, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, she performed before Czar Alexander III, who broke court protocol and bowed to her. During her tour, she also gave performances for King Alfonso XII of Spain, and the Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria.

 

The only European country where she refused to play was Germany, due to the German annexation of French territory after the 1870–71 Franco-Prussian War.

 

When she returned to Paris, she was offered a new role in 'Fédora', a melodrama written for her by Victorien Sardou. It opened on the 12th. December 1882, with her husband Damala as the male lead. The play received good reviews. Critic Maurice Baring wrote:

 

'A secret atmosphere emanated from her,

an aroma, an attraction, which was at once

exotic and cerebral. She literally hypnotised

her audience.'

 

Another journalist wrote,

 

'She is incomparable ... The extreme love,

the extreme agony, the extreme suffering.'

 

However, the abrupt end of her marriage shortly after the premiere put her back into financial distress. She had leased and refurbished a theatre, the 'Ambigu', specifically to give her husband Damala leading roles, and made her 18-year-old son Maurice, who had no business experience, the manager.

 

'Fédora' ran for just 50 performances and lost 400,000 francs. She was forced to give up the Ambigu, and then, in February 1883, to sell her jewellery, her carriages, and her horses at an auction.

 

When Damala left, she took on a new leading man and lover, the poet and playwright Jean Richepin, who accompanied her on a quick tour of European cities to help pay off her debts. She renewed her relationship with the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII.

 

When they returned to Paris, Bernhardt leased the theatre of Porte-Saint-Martin and starred in a new play by Richepin, 'Nana-Sahib', a costume drama about love in British India in 1857. The play and Richepin's acting were poor, and it quickly closed. Richepin then wrote an adaptation of 'Macbeth' in French, with Bernhardt as Lady Macbeth, but it was also a failure.

 

The only person who praised the play was Oscar Wilde, who was then living in Paris. He began writing a play, 'Salomé', in French, especially for Bernhardt, though it was quickly banned by British censors, and Sarah never performed it.

 

Bernhardt then performed a new play by Sardou, 'Theodora' (1884), a melodrama set in sixth-century Byzantium. Sardou wrote a non-historic but dramatic new death scene for Bernhardt; in his version, the empress was publicly strangled, whereas the historical empress died of cancer.

 

Bernhardt travelled to Ravenna, Italy, to study and sketch the costumes seen in Byzantine mosaic murals, and had them reproduced for her own costumes. The play opened on the 26th. December 1884 and ran for 300 performances in Paris, and 100 in London, and was a financial success.

 

Sarah was able to pay off most of her debts, and bought a lion cub, which she named Justinian, for her home menagerie. She also renewed her love affair with her former lead actor, Philippe Garnier.

 

World tours (1886–1892)

 

Theodora was followed by two failures. In 1885, in homage to Victor Hugo, who had died a few months earlier, she staged one of his older plays, 'Marion Delorme', written in 1831, but the play was outdated, and her role did not give her a chance to show her talents. She next put on 'Hamlet', with Philippe Garnier in the leading role and Bernhardt in the relatively minor role of Ophelia. The critics and audiences were not impressed, and the play was unsuccessful.

 

Bernhardt had built up large expenses, which included a 10,000 francs a month allowance paid to her son Maurice, a passionate gambler. Bernhardt was forced to sell her chalet in Sainte-Addresse and her mansion on Rue Fortuny, and part of her collection of animals.

 

Her impresario, Edouard Jarrett, immediately proposed she make another world tour, this time to Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Panama, Cuba, and Mexico, then on to Texas, New York, England, Ireland, and Scotland.

 

Sarah was on tour for 15 months, from early 1886 until late 1887. On the eve of departure, she told a French reporter:

 

"I passionately love this life of adventures.

I detest knowing in advance what they are

going to serve at my dinner, and I detest a

hundred thousand times more knowing

what will happen to me, for better or worse.

I adore the unexpected."

 

In every city she visited, she was feted and cheered by audiences. Emperor Pedro II of Brazil attended all of her performances in Rio de Janeiro, and presented her with a gold bracelet with diamonds, which was almost immediately stolen from her hotel.

 

The two leading actors both fell ill with yellow fever, and her long-time manager, Edward Jarrett, died of a heart attack. Bernhardt was undaunted, however, and went crocodile hunting at Guayaquil, and also bought more animals for her menagerie.

 

Her performances in every city were sold out, and by the end of the tour, she had earned more than a million francs. The tour allowed her to purchase her final home, which she filled with her paintings, plants, souvenirs, and animals.

 

From then on, whenever she ran short of money (which generally happened every three or four years), she went on tour, performing both her classics and new plays. In 1888, she toured Italy, Egypt, Turkey, Sweden, Norway, and Russia. She returned to Paris in early 1889 with an enormous owl given to her by the Grand Duke Alexis Alexandrovich, the brother of the Czar.

 

Sarah's 1891–92 tour was her most extensive, including much of Europe, Russia, North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and Samoa. Her personal luggage consisted of 45 costume crates for her 15 different productions, and 75 crates for her off-stage clothing, including her 250 pairs of shoes. She carried a trunk for her perfumes, cosmetics and makeup, and another for her sheets and tablecloths and her five pillows.

 

After the tour, she brought back a trunk filled with 3,500,000 francs, but she had also suffered a painful injury to her knee when she leaped off the parapet of the Castello Sant' Angelo in 'La Tosca'. The mattress on which she was supposed to land was misplaced, and she landed on the boards.

 

La Tosca to Cleopatra (1887–1893)

 

When Bernhardt returned from her 1886–87 tour, she received a new invitation to return to the Comédie Française. The theatre management was willing to forget the conflict of her two previous periods there, and offered a payment of 150,000 francs a year.

 

The money appealed to her, and she began negotiations. However, the senior members of the company protested the high salary offered, and conservative defenders of the more traditional theatre also complained; one anti-Bernhardt critic, Albert Delpit of 'Le Gaulois', wrote:

 

'Madame Sarah Bernhardt is forty-three;

she can no longer be useful to the Comédie.

Moreover, what roles could she have?

I can only imagine that she could play mothers'.

 

Bernhardt was deeply offended, and immediately broke off negotiations. She turned once again to Sardou, who had written a new play for her, 'La Tosca', which featured a prolonged and extremely dramatic death scene at the end.

 

The play was staged at the Porte-Saint-Martin Theatre, opening on the 24th. November 1887. It was extremely popular, and critically acclaimed. Bernhardt played the role for 29 consecutive sold-out performances.

 

The success of 'La Tosca' allowed Bernhardt to buy a new pet lion for her household menagerie. She named him Scarpia, after the villain of 'La Tosca'. The play inspired Giacomo Puccini to write one of his most famous operas, 'Tosca' (1900).

 

Following this success, Sarah acted in several revivals and classics, and many French writers offered her new plays. In 1887, she acted in a stage version of the controversial drama 'Thérèse Raquin' by Emile Zola. Zola had previously been attacked due to the book's confronting content. Asked why she chose this play, she declared to reporters:

 

"My true country is the free air,

and my vocation is art without

constraints."

 

The play was unsuccessful; it ran for just 38 performances. She then performed another traditional melodrama, 'Francillon' by Alexandre Dumas in 1888. A short drama Sarah wrote herself, 'l'Aveu', disappointed both critics and the audience, and lasted only 12 performances.

 

Sarah had considerably more success with 'Jeanne d'Arc' by the poet Jules Barbier, in which the 45-year-old actress played Joan of Arc, a 19-year-old martyr.

 

Sarah's next success was another melodrama by Sardou and Moreau, 'Cleopatra', which allowed her to wear elaborate costumes and finished with a memorable death scene. For this scene, she kept two live garter snakes, which played the role of the poisonous asp which bites Cleopatra. For realism, she painted the palms of her hands red, though they could hardly be seen from the audience. Sarah explained:

 

"I shall see them. If I catch sight

of my hand, it will be the hand

of Cleopatra."

 

Bernhardt's violent portrayal of Cleopatra led to the theatrical story of a matron in the audience exclaiming to her companion:

 

"How unlike, how very unlike, the

home life of our own dear Queen!"

 

Théâtre de la Renaissance (1893–1899)

 

Bernhardt made a two-year world tour (1891–1893) to replenish her finances. Upon returning to Paris, she paid 700,000 francs for the Théâtre de la Renaissance, and from 1893 until 1899, was its artistic director and lead actress.

 

She managed every aspect of the theatre, from the finances to the lighting, sets, and costumes, as well as appearing in eight performances a week.

 

Sarah imposed a rule that women in the audience, no matter how wealthy or famous, had to take off their hats during performances, so the rest of the audience could see, and eliminated the prompter's box from the stage, declaring that actors should know their lines.

 

She abolished in her theatre the common practice of hiring claqueurs in the audience to applaud stars. She used the new technology of lithography to produce vivid colour posters, and in 1894, she hired Czech artist Alphonse Mucha to design the first of a series of posters for her play 'Gismonda'. He continued to make posters for her for six years.

 

In five years, Bernhardt produced nine plays, three of which were financially successful. The first was a revival of her performance as 'Phédre', which she took on tour around the world. In 1898, she had another success, in the play 'Lorenzaccio', playing the male lead role in a Renaissance revenge drama written in 1834 by Alfred de Musset, but never before actually staged.

 

As her biographer Cornelia Otis Skinner wrote, she did not try to be overly masculine when she performed male roles:

 

'Her male impersonations had the

sexless grace of the voices of

choirboys, or the not quite real

pathos of Pierrot.'

 

Anatole France wrote of her performance in 'Lorenzaccio':

 

'She formed out of her own self

a young man melancholic, full of

poetry and of truth.'

 

This was followed by another successful melodrama by Sardou, 'Gismonda', one of Bernhardt's few plays not finishing with a dramatic death scene. Her co-star was Lucien Guitry, who also acted as her leading man until the end of her career. Besides Guitry, she shared the stage with Edouard de Max, her leading man in 20 productions, and Constant Coquelin, who frequently toured with her.

 

In April 1895, she played the lead role in a romantic and poetic fantasy, 'Princess Lointaine', by the little-known 27-year-old poet Edmond Rostand. It was not a monetary success and lost 200,000 francs, but it began a long theatrical relationship between Bernhardt and Rostand. Rostand went on to write 'Cyrano de Bergerac' and became one of the most popular French playwrights of the period.

 

In 1898, she performed the female lead in the controversial play 'La Ville Morte' by the Italian poet and playwright Gabriele D'Annunzio; the play was fiercely attacked by critics because of its theme of incest between brother and sister.

 

Along with Emile Zola and Victorien Sardou, Bernhardt also became an outspoken defender of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer falsely accused of betraying France. The issue divided Parisian society; a conservative newspaper ran the headline:

 

'Sarah Bernhardt has joined

the Jews against the Army'.

 

Even Bernhardt's own son Maurice condemned Dreyfus; he refused to speak to her for a year.

 

At the Théâtre de la Renaissance, Bernhardt staged and performed in several modern plays, but she was not a follower of the more natural school of acting that was coming into fashion at the end of the 19th. century, preferring a more dramatic expression of emotions. She declared:

 

"In the theatre the natural is good,

but the sublime is even better."

 

Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt (1899–1900)

 

Despite her successes, Sarah's debts continued to mount, reaching two million gold francs by the end of 1898. Bernhardt was forced to give up the Renaissance, and was preparing to go on another world tour when she learned that a much larger Paris theatre, the Théâtre des Nations on the Place du Châtelet, was for lease. The theatre had 1,700 seats, twice the size of the Renaissance, enabling her to pay off the cost of performances more quickly; it had an enormous stage and backstage, allowing her to present several different plays a week; and since it was originally designed as a concert hall, it had excellent acoustics. On the 1st. January 1899, she signed a 25-year lease with the City of Paris, though she was already 55 years old.

 

She renamed it the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, and began to renovate it to suit her needs. The façade was lit by 5,700 electric bulbs, 17 arc lights, and 11 projectors. She completely redecorated the interior, replacing the red plush and gilt with yellow velvet, brocade, and white woodwork. The lobby was decorated with life-sized portraits of her in her most famous roles.

 

Her dressing room was a five-room suite, which, after the success of her Napoleonic play 'l'Aiglon', was decorated in Empire Style, featuring a marble fireplace with a fire Bernhardt kept burning all year round, a huge bathtub that was filled with the flowers she received after each performance, and a dining room seating 12 people, where she entertained guests after the final curtain.

 

Bernhardt opened the theatre on the 21st. January 1899 with a revival of Sardou's 'La Tosca', which she had first performed in 1887. This was followed by revivals of her other major successes, including 'Phédre', 'Theodora', 'Gismonda', and 'La Dame aux Camélias', plus Octave Feuillet's 'Dalila', Gaston de Wailly's 'Patron Bénic', and Rostand's 'La Samaritaine'.

 

On the 20th. May, Sarah premiered one of her most famous roles, playing the titular character of Hamlet in a prose adaptation. She played Hamlet in a manner which was direct, natural, and very feminine. Her performance received largely positive reviews in Paris, but mixed reviews in London. The British critic Max Beerbohm wrote:

 

'The only compliment one can

conscientiously pay her is that

her Hamlet was, from first to last,

a truly grand dame.'

 

In 1900, Bernhardt presented 'l'Aiglon', a new play by Rostand. She played the Duc de Reichstadt, the son of Napoleon Bonaparte, imprisoned by his unloving mother and family until his melancholy death in the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna. 'l'Aiglon' was a verse drama, six acts long.

 

The 56-year-old actress studied the walk and posture of young cavalry officers, and had her hair cut short to impersonate the young Duke. The Duke's stage mother, Marie-Louise of Austria, was played by Maria Legault, an actress 14 years younger than Bernhardt. The play ended with a memorable death scene; according to one critic:

 

'She died as dying angels would

die if they were allowed to."

 

The play was extremely successful; it was especially popular with visitors to the 1900 Paris International Exposition, and ran for nearly a year, with standing-room places selling for as much as 600 gold francs.

 

The play inspired the creation of Bernhardt souvenirs, including statuettes, medallions, fans, perfumes, postcards of her in the role, uniforms and cardboard swords for children, and pastries and cakes; the famed chef Escoffier added Peach Aiglon with Chantilly Cream to his repertoire of desserts.

 

Bernhardt continued to employ Mucha to design her posters, and expanded his work to include theatrical sets, programs, costumes, and jewellery props. His posters became icons of the Art Nouveau style. To earn more money, Bernhardt set aside a certain number of printed posters of each play to sell to collectors.

 

Farewell tours (1901–1913)

 

After her season in Paris, Bernhardt performed 'l'Aiglon' in London, and then made her sixth tour of the United States. On this tour, she travelled with Constant Coquelin, then the most popular leading man in France.

 

Bernhardt played the secondary role of Roxanne to his Cyrano de Bergerac, a role which he had premiered, and he co-starred with her as Flambeau in 'l'Aiglon' and as the first grave-digger in 'Hamlet'.

 

Sarah also changed, for the first time, her resolution not to perform in Germany or the "occupied territories" of Alsace and Lorraine. In 1902, at the invitation of the French Ministry of Culture, she took part in the first cultural exchange between Germany and France since the 1870 war. She performed 'l'Aiglon' 14 times in Germany; Kaiser William II of Germany attended two performances and hosted a dinner in her honour in Potsdam.

 

During her German tour, she began to suffer agonising pain in her right knee, probably connected with the fall she had suffered on stage during her tour in South America. She was forced to reduce her movements in l'Aiglon.

 

A German doctor recommended that she halt the tour immediately and have surgery, followed by six months of complete immobilisation of her leg. Bernhardt promised to see a doctor when she returned to Paris, but continued the tour.

 

In 1903, she had another unsuccessful role playing another masculine character in the opera 'Werther', a gloomy adaptation of the story by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

 

However, Sarah quickly came back with another hit, 'La Sorcière' by Sardou. She played a Moorish sorceress in love with a Christian Spaniard, leading to her persecution by the church. This story of tolerance, coming soon after the Dreyfus affair, was financially successful, with Bernhardt often giving both a matinee and evening performance.

 

Between 1904 and 1906, Sarah appeared in a wide range of parts, including in 'Francesca di Rimini' by Francis Marion Crawford, the role of Fanny in 'Sappho' by Alphonse Daudet, the magician Circe in a play by Charles Richet, and the part of Marie Antoinette in the historical drama 'Varennes' by Lavedan and Lenôtre.

 

Sarah also played the part of the prince-poet Landry in a version of 'Sleeping Beauty' by Richepin and Henri Cain, and a new version of the play 'Pelléas and Mélissande' by Maurice Maeterlinck, in which she played the male role of Pelléas with the British actress Mrs Patrick Campbell as Mélissande.

 

Sarah also starred in a new version of 'Adrienne Lecouvreur', which she wrote herself, departing from the earlier version which had been written for her by Scribe.

 

During this time, she wrote a drama, 'Un Coeur d'Homme', in which she had no part, which was performed at the Théâtre des Arts, but lasted only three performances. She also taught acting briefly at the Conservatory, but found the system there too rigid and traditional. Instead, she took aspiring actresses and actors into her company, trained them, and used them as unpaid extras and bit players.

 

Bernhardt made her first American Farewell Tour in 1905–1906, the first of four farewell tours she made to the US, Canada, and Latin America, with her new managers, the Shubert brothers.

 

Sarah attracted controversy and press attention when, during her 1905 visit to Montreal, the Roman Catholic bishop encouraged his followers to throw eggs at Bernhardt, because she portrayed prostitutes as sympathetic characters.

 

The US portion of the tour was complicated due to the Shuberts' competition with the powerful syndicate of theatre owners who controlled nearly all the major theatres and opera houses in the United States. The syndicate did not allow outside producers to use their stages.

 

As a result, in Texas and Kansas City, Bernhardt and her company performed under an enormous circus tent, seating 4,500 spectators, and in skating rinks in Atlanta, Savannah, Tampa, and other cities.

 

Her private train took her to Knoxville, Dallas, Denver, Tampa, Chattanooga, and Salt Lake City, then on to the West Coast. She could not play in San Francisco because of the recent 1906 earthquake, but she performed across the bay in the Hearst Greek Theatre at the University of California at Berkeley.

 

Sarah also gave a recital, entitled 'A Christmas Night during the Terror', for inmates at San Quentin penitentiary. (Johnny Cash - Sarah did it first!)

 

In April 1906 Bernhardt toured the ruins of San Francisco after the earthquake and fire, escorted by the critic Ashton Stevens.

 

Sarah's tour continued into South America, where it was marred by a more serious event: at the conclusion of 'La Tosca' in Rio de Janeiro, she leaped, as always, from the wall of the fortress to plunge to her death in the Tiber. This time, however, the mattress on which she was supposed to land had been positioned incorrectly.

 

She landed on her right knee, which had already been damaged in earlier tours. She fainted, and was taken from the theatre on a stretcher, but refused to be treated in a local hospital. She later sailed by ship from Rio to New York. When she arrived, her leg had swollen, and she was immobilised in her hotel for 15 days before returning to France.

 

In 1906–1907, the French government finally awarded Bernhardt the Legion of Honour, but only in her role as a theatre director, not as an actress. The award at that time required a review of the recipient's moral standards, and Bernhardt's behaviour was still considered scandalous.

 

Bernhardt ignored the snub, and continued to play both inoffensive and controversial characters. In November 1906, she starred in 'La Vierge d'Avila, ou La Courtisan de Dieu', by Catulle Mendes, playing Saint Theresa, followed on the 27th. January 1907 by 'Les Bouffons', by Miguel Zamocois, in which she played a young and amorous medieval lord.

 

In 1909, she again played the 19-year-old Joan of Arc in 'Le Procès de Jeanne d'Arc' by Émile Moreau. French newspapers encouraged schoolchildren to view her personification of French patriotism.

 

Despite the injury to her leg, Sarah continued to go on tour every summer, when her own theatre in Paris was closed. In June 1908, she made a 20-day tour of Great Britain and Ireland, performing in 16 different cities.

 

In 1908–1909, she toured Russia and Poland. Her second American farewell tour (her eighth tour in America) began in late 1910. She took along a new leading man, the Dutch-born Lou Tellegen, a very handsome actor who had served as a model for the sculpture 'Eternal Springtime' by Auguste Rodin, and who became her co-star for the next two years, as well as her escort to all events, functions, and parties.

 

Lou was not a particularly good actor, and had a strong Dutch accent, but he was successful in roles such as Hippolyte in 'Phédre', where he could take off his shirt and show off his physique.

 

In New York, Sarah created yet another scandal when she appeared in the role of Judas Iscariot in 'Judas' by the American playwright John Wesley De Kay. It was performed in New York's Globe Theatre for only one night in December 1910 before it was banned by local authorities. It was also banned in Boston and Philadelphia.

 

In April 1912, Bernhardt presented a new production in her theatre, 'Les Amours de la Reine Élisabeth', a romantic costume drama by Émile Moreau about Queen Elizabeth's romances with Robert Dudley and Robert Devereux.

 

It was lavish and expensive, but was a financial failure, lasting only 12 performances. Fortunately for Bernhardt, she was able to pay off her debt with the money she received from the American producer Adolph Zukor for a film version of the play.

 

Sarah departed on her third farewell tour of the United States in 1913–1914, when she was 69. Her leg had not yet fully healed, and she was unable to perform an entire play, only selected acts. She also separated from her co-star and lover of the time, Lou Tellegen. When the tour ended, he remained in the United States, where he briefly became a silent movie star, while she returned to France in May 1913.

 

Amputation of Sarah's Leg and Wartime Performances (1914–1918)

 

In December 1913, Bernhardt achieved another success with the drama 'Jeanne Doré'. On the 16th. March, she was made a Chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur. Despite her successes, she was still short of money. She had made her son Maurice the director of her new theatre, and permitted him to use the receipts of the theatre to pay his gambling debts, eventually forcing her to pawn some of her jewels to pay her bills.

 

In 1914, she went as usual to her holiday home on Belle-Île with her family and close friends. There, she received the news of the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and the beginning of the Great War.

 

Sarah hurried back to Paris, which was threatened by an approaching German army. In September, Bernhardt was asked by the Minister of War to move to a safer place. She departed for a villa on the Bay of Arcachon, where her physician discovered that gangrene had developed on her injured leg.

 

She was transported to Bordeaux, where on the 22nd. February 1915, a surgeon amputated her leg almost to the hip. She refused the idea of an artificial leg, crutches, or a wheelchair, and instead was usually carried in a palanquin she had designed, supported by two long shafts and carried by two men. She had the chair decorated in the Louis XV style, with white sides and gilded trim.

 

She returned to Paris on the 15th. October, and, despite the loss of her leg, continued to go on stage at her theatre; scenes were arranged so she could be seated, or supported by a prop with her leg hidden. She took part in a patriotic 'scenic poem' by Eugène Morand, 'Les Cathédrales', playing the part of Strasbourg Cathedral; first, while seated, she recited a poem; then she hoisted herself up on her one leg, leaned against the arm of the chair, and declared:

 

"Weep, weep, Germany! The German

eagle has fallen into the Rhine!"

 

Bernhardt joined a troupe of famous French actors and travelled to the Battle of Verdun and the Battle of the Argonne, where she performed for soldiers who had just returned or were about to go into battle.

 

Propped on pillows in an armchair, she recited her patriotic speech at Strasbourg Cathedral. Another actress present at the event, Beatrix Dussanne, described her performance:

 

"The miracle again took place; Sarah,

old, mutilated, once more illuminated

a crowd by the rays of her genius.

This fragile creature, ill, wounded and

immobile, could still, through the magic

of the spoken word, re-instil heroism in

those soldiers weary from battle."

 

Sarah returned to Paris in 1916 and made two short films on patriotic themes, one based on the story of Joan of Arc, the other called 'Mothers of France'.

 

Sarah then embarked on her final American farewell tour. Despite the threat of German submarines, she crossed the Atlantic and toured the United States, performing in major cities including New York and San Francisco.

 

Bernhardt was diagnosed with uremia, and had to have an emergency kidney operation. She recuperated in Long Beach, California, for several months, writing short stories and novellas for publication in French magazines. In 1918, she returned to New York and boarded a ship to France, landing in Bordeaux on the 11th. November 1918, the day that the Armistice was signed ending the First World War.

 

Sarah Bernhardt - The Final years (1919–1923)

 

In 1920, Sarah resumed acting in her theatre, usually performing single acts of classics such as Racine's 'Athelée', which did not require much movement. For her curtain calls, she stood, balancing on one leg and gesturing with one arm.

 

She also starred in a new play, 'Daniel', written by her grandson-in-law, playwright Louis Verneuil. She played the male lead role, but appeared in just two acts. She took the play and other famous scenes from her repertory on a European tour and then for her last tour of England, where she gave a special performance for Queen Mary.

 

In 1921, Bernhardt made her last tour of the French provinces, lecturing about the theatre and reciting the poetry of Rostand. Later that year, she produced a new play by Rostand, 'La Gloire', and another play by Verneuil, 'Régine Arnaud' in 1922. She continued to entertain guests at her home. One such guest, French author Colette, described being served coffee by Bernhardt:

 

"The delicate and withered hand offering

the brimming cup, the flowery azure of the

eyes, so young still in their network of fine

lines, the questioning and mocking coquetry

of the tilted head, and that indescribable

desire to charm, to charm still, to charm

right up to the gates of death itself."

 

In 1922, Sarah began rehearsing a new play by Sacha Guitry, called 'Un Sujet de Roman'. On the night of the dress rehearsal she collapsed into a coma for an hour, then awakened with the words, "When do I go on?"

 

She recuperated for several months, before preparing for a new role as Cleopatra in 'Rodogune' by Corneille, and agreed to make a new film called 'La Voyante', for a payment of 10,000 francs a day.

 

The Death of Sarah Bernhardt

 

Sarah was too weak to travel, so a room in her house on Boulevard Pereire was set up as a film studio, with scenery, lights, and cameras. However, on the 21st. March 1923, Sarah collapsed again, and never recovered. She died at the age of 78 from uremia on the 26th. March 1923.

 

Sarah died peacefully in the arms of her son. At her request, her Funeral Mass was celebrated at the church of Saint-François-de-Sales, which she attended when she was in Paris.

 

The following day, 30,000 people attended her funeral to pay their respects, and an enormous crowd followed her casket from the church to Père Lachaise Cemetery.

I took this photo of a plastic skull with my experimental scanner camera in March of 2020, a week or so before the lockdowns began. Afterwards, it seemed too morbid to post. Now a year on, I find the image a fitting reminder of dark days full of uncertainty and fear. God was good to me in 2020, but there were times when I was extremely ill or when my imagination ran wild about what could happen to the world, that still feel like a cold spike in my chest. There were a few weeks there where the world felt like it was falling to pieces and my small apartment felt like a combination of a warm stronghold, a dark prison and a place where I might even die alone in my bed. Memento mori.

This was the first time I attempted a boudoir shoot, I must say it is rather interesting learning to navigate the use of space in a small apartment!!

 

Model: Sophie

Perth Australia, 2014

Photographer: www.facebook.com/louisavioletphotography

louisaviolet.com/

Bilder tagna inne i en liten lägenhet i Stockholm under coronakrisen 2020. Images shot from inside a small apartment in Stockholm during the corona crisis of 2020.

The Postcard

 

A carte postale bearing no publisher's name that was posted in St.-Denis, Paris on Tuesday the 4th. November 1913 to:

 

Monsieur et Madame Brette,

1, Rue Gérot,

Auxerre (Yonne).

 

The brief message on the divided back of the card was as follows:

 

"Bonne santé.

Bonjour à tous,

R. P."

 

The Eiffel Tower

 

The Eiffel Tower is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.

 

Locally nicknamed "La Dame de Fer" ("Iron Lady"), it was constructed from 1887 to 1889 as the entrance to the 1889 World's Fair.

 

The tower was initially criticised by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but it has become a global cultural icon of France, and one of the most recognisable structures in the world. The Eiffel Tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world; 6.91 million people ascended it in 2015.

 

The tower is 324 metres tall, about the same height as an 81-storey building, and the tallest structure in Paris. Its base is square, measuring 125 metres on each side.

 

During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to become the tallest man-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years until the Chrysler Building in New York City was finished in 1930. It was the first structure in the world to surpass both the 200 meter and 300 meter mark in height.

 

Due to the addition of a broadcasting aerial at the top of the tower in 1957, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building by 5.2 metres. Excluding transmitters, the Eiffel Tower is the second tallest free-standing structure in France after the Millau Viaduct.

 

The tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the first and second levels. The top level's upper platform is 276 m above the ground – the highest observation deck accessible to the public in the European Union. The climb from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the climb from the first level to the second. Although there is a staircase to the top level, it is usually accessible only by lift.

 

Origin of The Eiffel Tower

 

The design of the Eiffel Tower is attributed to Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, two senior engineers working for the Compagnie des Établissements Eiffel. It was envisioned after discussion about a suitable centrepiece for the proposed 1889 Exposition Universelle, a world's fair to celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution.

 

Eiffel openly acknowledged that inspiration for a tower came from the Latting Observatory built in New York City in 1853.

 

In May 1884, working at home, Koechlin made a sketch of their idea, described by him as:

 

"A great pylon, consisting of four lattice girders

standing apart at the base and coming together

at the top, joined together by metal trusses at

regular intervals".

 

Eiffel initially showed little enthusiasm, but he did approve further study, and the two engineers then asked Stephen Sauvestre, the head of company's architectural department, to contribute to the design. Sauvestre added decorative arches to the base of the tower, a glass pavilion to the first level, and other embellishments.

 

The new version gained Eiffel's support: he bought the rights to the patent on the design which Koechlin, Nougier, and Sauvestre had taken out, and the design was exhibited at the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in the autumn of 1884 under the company name.

 

On the 30th. March 1885, Eiffel presented his plans to the Société des Ingénieurs Civils; after discussing the technical problems and emphasising the practical uses of the tower, he finished his talk by saying:

 

"The tower would symbolise not only the art

of the modern engineer, but also the century

of Industry and Science in which we are living,

and for which the way was prepared by the great

scientific movement of the eighteenth century

and by the Revolution of 1789, to which this

monument will be built as an expression of

France's gratitude".

 

Little progress was made until 1886, when Jules Grévy was re-elected as president of France and Édouard Lockroy was appointed as minister for trade. A budget for the exposition was passed and, on the 1st. May, Lockroy announced an alteration to the terms of the open competition being held for a centrepiece to the exposition.

 

This effectively made the selection of Eiffel's design a foregone conclusion, as entries had to include a study for a 300 m four-sided metal tower on the Champ de Mars. On the 12th. May, a commission was set up to examine Eiffel's scheme and its rivals, which, a month later, decided that all the proposals except Eiffel's were either impractical or lacking in details.

 

After some debate about the exact location of the tower, a contract was signed on the 8th. January 1887. This was signed by Eiffel acting in his own capacity rather than as the representative of his company. He was granted 1.5 million francs toward the construction costs: less than a quarter of the estimated 6.5 million francs.

 

Eiffel was to receive all income from the commercial exploitation of the tower during the exhibition and for the following 20 years. He later established a separate company to manage the tower, putting up half the necessary capital himself.

 

Artists' Criticism of The Tower Before it Was Built

 

The proposed tower drew criticism from those who did not believe it was feasible, and those who objected on artistic grounds. Prior to the Eiffel Tower's construction, no structure had ever been constructed to a height of 300 m, or even 200 m for the matter, and many people believed it was impossible.

 

These objections were an expression of a long-standing debate in France about the relationship between architecture and engineering. It came to a head as work began at the Champ de Mars: a "Committee of Three Hundred" (one member for each metre of the tower's height) was formed, led by the prominent architect Charles Garnier.

 

The committee included some of the most important figures of the arts, such as William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Guy de Maupassant, Charles Gounod and Jules Massenet. A petition called "Artists against the Eiffel Tower" was sent to the Minister of Works and Commissioner for the Exposition, Adolphe Alphand, and it was published by Le Temps on the 14th. February 1887:

 

"We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and

passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched

beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with

all our indignation in the name of slighted French

taste, against the erection of this useless and

monstrous Eiffel Tower.

To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment

a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a

gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric

bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre,

the Dome of Les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of

our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly

dream.

And for twenty years we shall see stretching like a blot

of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of

bolted sheet metal".

 

Gustave Eiffel responded to these criticisms by comparing his tower to the Egyptian pyramids:

 

"My tower will be the tallest edifice ever erected

by man. Will it not also be grandiose in its way?

And why would something admirable in Egypt

become hideous and ridiculous in Paris?"

 

These criticisms were also dealt with by Édouard Lockroy in a letter of support written to Alphand, sardonically saying:

 

"Judging by the stately swell of the rhythms, the beauty

of the metaphors, the elegance of its delicate and precise style, one can tell this protest is the result of collaboration

of the most famous writers and poets of our time".

 

He went on to say that anyway, the protest was irrelevant since the project had been decided upon months before, and construction on the tower was already under way.

 

Indeed, Garnier was a member of the Tower Commission that had examined the various proposals, and had raised no objection. Eiffel was similarly unworried, pointing out to a journalist that it was premature to judge the effect of the tower solely on the basis of the drawings, that the Champ de Mars was distant enough from the monuments mentioned in the protest for there to be little risk of the tower overwhelming them, and putting the aesthetic argument for the tower:

 

"Do not the laws of natural forces always

conform to the secret laws of harmony?"

 

Some of the protesters changed their minds when the tower was built; others remained unconvinced. Guy de Maupassant supposedly ate lunch in the tower's restaurant every day because it was the one place in Paris where the tower was not visible.

 

By 1918, it had become a symbol of Paris and of France after Guillaume Apollinaire wrote a nationalist poem in the shape of the tower (a calligram) to express his feelings about the war against Germany. Today, it is widely considered to be a remarkable piece of structural art, and is often featured in films and literature.

 

Construction of The Eiffel Tower

 

Work on the foundations started on the 28th. January 1887. Those for the east and south legs were straightforward, with each leg resting on four 2 m concrete slabs, one for each of the principal girders of each leg.

 

The west and north legs, being closer to the river Seine, were more complicated: each slab needed two piles installed by using compressed-air caissons 15 m long and 6 m in diameter driven to a depth of 22 m. These were designed to support the concrete slabs, which were 6 m thick. Each of these slabs supported a block of limestone with an inclined top to bear a supporting shoe for the ironwork.

 

Each shoe was anchored to the stonework by a pair of bolts 10 cm in diameter and 7.5 m long. The foundations were completed on the 30th. June, and the erection of the ironwork began.

 

The visible work on-site was complemented by the enormous amount of exacting preparatory work that took place behind the scenes: the drawing office produced 1,700 general drawings and 3,629 detailed drawings of the different parts needed.

 

The task of drawing the components was complicated by the complex angles involved in the design and the degree of precision required: the position of rivet holes was specified to within 1 mm and angles worked out to one second of arc.

 

The finished components, some already joined together into sub-assemblies, arrived on horse-drawn carts from a factory in the nearby Parisian suburb of Levallois-Perret. They were first bolted together, with the bolts being replaced with rivets as construction progressed. No drilling or shaping was done on site: if any part did not fit, it was sent back to the factory for alteration. In all, 18,038 pieces were joined together using 2.5 million rivets.

 

At first, the legs were constructed as cantilevers, but about halfway to the first level construction was paused to create a substantial timber scaffold. This renewed concerns about the structural integrity of the tower, and sensational headlines such as "Eiffel Suicide!" and "Gustave Eiffel Has Gone Mad: He Has Been Confined in an Asylum" appeared in the tabloid press.

 

At this stage, a small "creeper" crane designed to move up the tower was installed in each leg. They made use of the guides for the lifts which were to be fitted in the four legs. The critical stage of joining the legs at the first level was completed by the end of March 1888.

 

Although the metalwork had been prepared with the utmost attention to detail, provision had been made to carry out small adjustments to precisely align the legs; hydraulic jacks were fitted to the shoes at the base of each leg, capable of exerting a force of 800 tonnes.

 

Although construction involved 300 on-site employees, due to Eiffel's safety precautions and the use of movable gangways, guardrails and screens, only one person died.

 

The Eiffel Tower Lifts

 

Equipping the tower with adequate and safe passenger lifts was a major concern of the government commission overseeing the Exposition. Although some visitors could be expected to climb to the first level, or even the second, lifts clearly had to be the main means of ascent.

 

Constructing lifts to reach the first level was relatively straightforward: the legs were wide enough at the bottom and so nearly straight that they could contain a straight track, and a contract was given to the French company Roux, Combaluzier & Lepape for two lifts to be fitted in the east and west legs.

 

Roux, Combaluzier & Lepape used a pair of endless chains with rigid, articulated links to which the car was attached. Lead weights on some links of the upper or return sections of the chains counterbalanced most of the car's weight. The car was pushed up from below, not pulled up from above. To prevent the chain buckling, it was enclosed in a conduit. At the bottom of the run, the chains passed around 3.9 m diameter sprockets.

 

Installing lifts to the second level was more of a challenge because a straight track was impossible. No French company wanted to undertake the work. The European branch of Otis Brothers & Company submitted a proposal, but this was rejected: the fair's charter ruled out the use of any foreign material in the construction of the tower.

 

The deadline for bids was extended, but still no French companies put themselves forward, and eventually the contract was given to Otis in July 1887. Otis were confident they would eventually be given the contract, and had already started creating designs.

 

The car was divided into two superimposed compartments, each holding 25 passengers, with the lift operator occupying an exterior platform on the first level. Motive power was provided by an inclined hydraulic ram 12.67 m long and 96.5 cm in diameter in the tower leg with a stroke of 10.83 m.

 

The original lifts for the journey between the second and third levels were supplied by Léon Edoux. A pair of 81 m hydraulic rams were mounted on the second level, reaching nearly halfway up to the third level. One lift car was mounted on top of these rams: cables ran from the top of this car up to sheaves on the third level and back down to a second car. Each car only travelled half the distance between the second and third levels and passengers were required to change lifts halfway by means of a short gangway. The 10-ton cars each held 65 passengers.

 

Inauguration and the 1889 exposition

 

The main structural work was completed at the end of March 1889 and, on the 31st. March, Eiffel celebrated by leading a group of government officials, accompanied by representatives of the press, to the top of the tower.

 

Because the lifts were not yet in operation, the ascent was made by foot, and took over an hour, with Eiffel stopping frequently to explain various features. Most of the party chose to stop at the lower levels, but a few, including the structural engineer, Émile Nouguier, the head of construction, Jean Compagnon, the President of the City Council, and reporters from Le Figaro and Le Monde Illustré, completed the ascent. At 2:35 pm, Eiffel hoisted a large Tricolour to the accompaniment of a 25-gun salute fired at the first level.

 

There was still work to be done, particularly on the lifts and facilities, and the tower was not opened to the public until nine days after the opening of the exposition on the 6th. May; even then, the lifts had not been completed.

 

The tower was an instant success with the public, and nearly 30,000 visitors made the 1,710-step climb to the top before the lifts entered service on 26 May. Tickets cost 2 francs for the first level, 3 for the second, and 5 for the top, with half-price admission on Sundays. By the end of the exhibition there had been 1,896,987 visitors.

 

After dark, the tower was lit by hundreds of gas lamps, and a beacon sent out three beams of red, white and blue light. Two searchlights mounted on a circular rail were used to illuminate various buildings of the exposition. The daily opening and closing of the exposition were announced by a cannon at the top.

 

On the second level, the French newspaper Le Figaro had an office and a printing press, where a special souvenir edition, Le Figaro de la Tour, was made. There was also a pâtisserie.

 

At the top of the tower there was a post office where visitors could send letters and postcards as a memento of their visit. Graffitists were also catered for: sheets of paper were mounted on the walls each day for visitors to record their impressions of the tower. Gustave Eiffel described some of the responses as vraiment curieuse ("truly curious").

 

Famous visitors to the tower included the Prince of Wales, Sarah Bernhardt, "Buffalo Bill" Cody (his Wild West show was an attraction at the exposition) and Thomas Edison. Eiffel invited Edison to his private apartment at the top of the tower, where Edison presented him with one of his phonographs, a new invention and one of the many highlights of the exposition. Edison signed the guestbook with this message:

 

"To M Eiffel the Engineer, the brave builder

of so gigantic and original specimen of

modern Engineering from one who has the

greatest respect and admiration for all

Engineers including the Great Engineer the

Bon Dieu.

Thomas Edison".

 

Eiffel had a permit for the tower to stand for 20 years. It was to be dismantled in 1909, when its ownership would revert to the City of Paris. The City had planned to tear it down (part of the original contest rules for designing a tower was that it should be easy to dismantle) but as the tower proved to be valuable for radio telegraphy, it was allowed to remain after the expiry of the permit, and from 1910 it also became part of the International Time Service.

 

Eiffel made use of his apartment at the top of the tower to carry out meteorological observations, and also used the tower to perform experiments on the action of air resistance on falling bodies.

 

Subsequent Events Associated With The Tower

 

On the 19th. October 1901, Alberto Santos-Dumont, flying his No.6 airship, won a 100,000-franc prize offered by Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe for the first person to make a flight from St. Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and back in less than half an hour.

 

Many innovations took place at the Eiffel Tower in the early 20th century. In 1910, Theodor Wulf measured radiant energy at the top and bottom of the tower. He found more at the top than expected, incidentally discovering what are known today as cosmic rays.

 

On the 4th. February 1912, Austrian tailor Franz Reichelt died after jumping from the first level of the tower (a height of 57 m) to demonstrate his parachute design.

 

In 1914, at the outbreak of the Great War, a radio transmitter located in the tower jammed German radio communications, seriously hindering their advance on Paris and contributing to the Allied victory at the First Battle of the Marne.

 

From 1925 to 1934, illuminated signs for Citroën adorned three of the tower's sides, making it the tallest advertising space in the world at the time. In April 1935, the tower was used to make experimental low-resolution television transmissions. On the 17th. November, an improved 180-line transmitter was installed.

 

On two separate occasions in 1925, the con artist Victor Lustig "sold" the tower for scrap metal.

 

In February 1926, pilot Leon Collet was killed trying to fly under the tower. His aircraft became entangled in an aerial belonging to a wireless station.

 

A bust of Gustave Eiffel by Antoine Bourdelle was unveiled at the base of the north leg on the 2nd. May 1929.

 

In 1930, the tower lost the title of the world's tallest structure when the Chrysler Building in New York City was completed.

 

In 1938, the decorative arcade around the first level was removed.

 

Upon the German occupation of Paris in 1940, the lift cables were cut by the French. In 1940, German soldiers had to climb the tower to hoist a swastika flag, but the flag was so large it blew away just a few hours later, and was replaced by a smaller one.

 

When visiting Paris, Hitler chose to stay on the ground. When the Allies were nearing Paris in August 1944, Hitler ordered General Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, to demolish the tower along with the rest of the city. Von Choltitz disobeyed the order.

 

On the 25th. June, before the Germans had been driven out of Paris, the German flag was replaced with a Tricolour by two men from the French Naval Museum, who narrowly beat three men led by Lucien Sarniguet, who had lowered the Tricolour on the 13th. June 1940 when Paris fell to the Germans.

 

The tower was closed to the public during the occupation, and the lifts were not repaired until 1946.

 

A fire started in the television transmitter on the 3rd. January 1956, damaging the top of the tower. Repairs took a year, and in 1957, the present radio aerial was added to the top. In 1964, the Eiffel Tower was officially declared to be a historical monument by the Minister of Cultural Affairs, André Malraux.

 

According to interviews, in 1967, Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau negotiated a secret agreement with Charles de Gaulle for the tower to be dismantled and temporarily relocated to Montreal to serve as a landmark and tourist attraction during Expo 67.

 

The plan was allegedly vetoed by the company operating the tower out of fear that the French government could refuse permission for the tower to be restored in its original location.

 

In 1982, the original lifts between the second and third levels were replaced after 97 years in service. These had been closed to the public between November and March because the water in the hydraulic drive tended to freeze. The new cars operate in pairs, with one counterbalancing the other, and perform the journey in one stage, reducing the journey time from eight minutes to less than two minutes.

 

At the same time, two new emergency staircases were installed, replacing the original spiral staircases. In 1983, the south pillar was fitted with an electrically driven Otis lift to serve the Jules Verne restaurant.

 

The Fives-Lille lifts in the east and west legs, fitted in 1899, were extensively refurbished in 1986. The cars were replaced, and a computer system was installed to completely automate the lifts. The motive power was moved from the water hydraulic system to a new electrically driven oil-filled hydraulic system.

 

Robert Moriarty flew a Beechcraft Bonanza under the tower on the 31st. March 1984.

 

In 1987, A. J. Hackett made one of his first bungee jumps from the top of the Eiffel Tower, using a special cord he had helped develop. Hackett was arrested by the police.

 

On the 27th. October 1991, Thierry Devaux, along with mountain guide Hervé Calvayrac, performed a series of acrobatic figures while bungee jumping from the second floor of the tower. Facing the Champ de Mars, Devaux used an electric winch to go back up to the second floor. When firemen arrived, he stopped after the sixth jump.

 

The tower is the focal point for New Year's Eve and Bastille Day celebrations in Paris.

 

For its "Countdown to the Year 2000" celebration on the 31st. December 1999, flashing lights and high-powered searchlights were installed on the tower. During the last three minutes of the year, the lights were turned on starting from the base of the tower and continuing to the top to welcome 2000 with a huge fireworks show. The searchlights on top of the tower made it a beacon in Paris's night sky, and 20,000 flashing bulbs gave the tower a sparkly appearance for five minutes every hour on the hour.

 

The tower received its 200,000,000th guest on the 28th. November 2002. The tower has operated at its maximum capacity of about 7 million visitors per year since 2003.

 

In 2004, the Eiffel Tower began hosting a seasonal ice rink on the first level.

 

A glass floor was installed on the first level during the 2014 refurbishment.

 

In 2016, during Valentine's Day, the performance Un Battement by French artist Milène Guermont unfolds among the Eiffel Tower, the Montparnasse Tower and the contemporary artwork Phares installed on the Place de la Concorde. This interactive pyramid-shaped sculpture allows the public to transmit the beating of their hearts thanks to a cardiac sensor. The Eiffel Tower and the Montparnasse Tower also light up to the rhythm of Phares. This is the first time that the Eiffel Tower has interacted with a work of art.

 

The Metal of The Eiffel Tower

 

The wrought iron of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tons, and the addition of lifts, shops and antennae have brought the total weight to approximately 10,100 tons.

 

As a demonstration of the economy of design, if the 7,300 tons of metal in the structure were melted down, it would fill the square base, 125 metres (410 ft) on each side, to a depth of only 6.25 cm. A box surrounding the tower (324 m x 125 m x 125 m) would contain 6,200 tons of air, weighing almost as much as the iron itself.

 

Depending on the ambient temperature, the top of the tower may shift away from the sun by up to 18 cm (7 in) due to thermal expansion of the metal on the side facing the sun.

 

Wind Considerations

 

When it was built, many were shocked by the tower's daring form. Eiffel was accused of trying to create something artistic with no regard to the principles of engineering. However, Eiffel and his team – experienced bridge builders – understood the importance of wind forces, and knew that if they were going to build the tallest structure in the world, they had to be sure it could withstand them. In an interview with the newspaper Le Temps published on the 14th. February 1887, Eiffel said:

 

"Is it not true that the very conditions which give

strength also conform to the hidden rules of

harmony?

Now to what phenomenon did I have to give

primary concern in designing the Tower? It was

wind resistance.

Well then! I hold that the curvature of the monument's

four outer edges, which is as mathematical calculation

dictated it should be, will give a great impression of

strength and beauty, for it will reveal to the eyes of the

observer the boldness of the design as a whole".

 

Eiffel used graphical methods to determine the strength of the tower, and empirical evidence to account for the effects of wind, rather than a mathematical formula. All parts of the tower were over-designed to ensure maximum resistance to wind forces. The top half was even assumed to have no gaps in the latticework.

 

In the years since it was completed, engineers have put forward various mathematical hypotheses in an attempt to explain the success of the design. The most recent, devised in 2004 after letters sent by Eiffel to the French Society of Civil Engineers in 1885 were translated into English, is described as a non-linear integral equation based on counteracting the wind pressure on any point of the tower with the tension between the construction elements at that point.

 

The Eiffel Tower sways by up to 9 cm in the wind.

 

Facilities Within The Eiffel Tower

 

When originally built, the first level contained three restaurants – one French, one Russian and one Flemish — and an "Anglo-American Bar".

 

After the exposition closed, the Flemish restaurant was converted to a 250-seat theatre. A promenade 2.6-metres wide ran around the outside of the first level.

 

At the top, there were laboratories for various experiments, and a small apartment reserved for Gustave Eiffel to entertain guests, which is now open to the public, complete with period decorations and lifelike mannequins of Eiffel and some of his notable guests.

 

In May 2016, an apartment was created on the first level to accommodate four competition winners during the UEFA Euro 2016 football tournament in Paris in June. The apartment has a kitchen, two bedrooms, a lounge, and views of Paris landmarks including the Seine, the Sacre Coeur, and the Arc de Triomphe.

 

Engraved Names on The Tower

 

Gustave Eiffel engraved on the tower the names of 72 French scientists, engineers and mathematicians in recognition of their contributions to the building of the tower. Eiffel chose this "invocation of science" because of his concern over the artists' protest. At the beginning of the 20th. century, the engravings were painted over, but they were restored in 1986–87.

 

Aesthetics of The Tower

 

The tower is painted in three shades: lighter at the top, getting progressively darker towards the bottom to complement the Parisian sky. It was originally reddish brown; this changed in 1968 to a bronze colour known as "Eiffel Tower Brown".

 

The only non-structural elements are the four decorative grill-work arches, added in Sauvestre's sketches, which served to make the tower look more substantial and to make a more impressive entrance to the exposition.

 

A movie cliché is that the view from a Parisian window always includes the tower. In reality, since zoning restrictions limit the height of most buildings in Paris to seven storeys, only a small number of tall buildings have a clear view of the tower.

 

Maintenance of The Tower

 

Maintenance of the tower includes applying 60 tons of paint every seven years to prevent it from rusting. The tower has been completely repainted at least 19 times since it was built. Lead paint was still being used as recently as 2001 when the practice was stopped out of concern for the environment.

 

Popularity of The Tower

 

More than 250 million people have visited the tower since it was completed in 1889. The tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world. An average of 25,000 people ascend the tower every day which can result in long queues.

 

Restaurants in The Tower

 

The tower has two restaurants: Le 58 Tour Eiffel on the first level, and Le Jules Verne, a gourmet restaurant with its own lift on the second level. Additionally, there is a champagne bar at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

 

From 1937 until 1981, there was a restaurant near the top of the tower. It was removed due to structural considerations; engineers had determined it was too heavy, and was causing the tower to sag. This restaurant was sold to an American restaurateur and transported to New Orleans. It was rebuilt on the edge of New Orleans' Garden District as a restaurant and later an event hall.

 

Replicas of The Eiffel Tower

 

As one of the most iconic landmarks in the world, the Eiffel Tower has been the inspiration for the creation of many replicas and similar towers.

 

An early example is Blackpool Tower in England. The mayor of Blackpool, Sir John Bickerstaffe, was so impressed on seeing the Eiffel Tower at the 1889 exposition that he commissioned a similar tower to be built in his town. It opened in 1894, and is 158.1 m tall. Tokyo Tower in Japan, built as a communications tower in 1958, was also inspired by the Eiffel Tower.

 

There are various scale models of the tower in the United States, including a half-scale version at the Paris Las Vegas, Nevada. There is also a copy in Paris, Texas built in 1993, and two 1:3 scale models at Kings Island, located in Mason, Ohio, and Kings Dominion, Virginia, amusement parks opened in 1972 and 1975 respectively.

 

There is a 1:3 scale model in China, and one in Durango, Mexico that was donated by the local French community. There are also several across Europe.

 

In 2011, the TV show Pricing the Priceless on the National Geographic Channel speculated that a full-size replica of the tower would cost approximately US$480 million to build. This would be more than ten times the cost of the original.

 

Communications

 

The tower has been used for making radio transmissions since the beginning of the 20th. century. Until the 1950's, sets of aerial wires ran from the cupola to anchors on the Avenue de Suffren and Champ de Mars. These were connected to longwave transmitters in small bunkers.

 

In 1909, a permanent underground radio centre was built near the south pillar, which still exists today.

 

On the 20th. November 1913, the Paris Observatory, using the Eiffel Tower as an aerial, exchanged wireless signals with the United States Naval Observatory, which used an aerial in Arlington, Virginia. The object of the transmissions was to measure the difference in longitude between Paris and Washington, D.C. Today, radio and digital television signals are transmitted from the Eiffel Tower.

 

A television antenna was first installed on the tower in 1957, increasing its height by 18.7 m. Work carried out in 2000 added a further 5.3 m, giving the current height of 324 m.

 

Legal Issues Associated With The Tower

 

The tower and its image have been in the public domain since 1993, 70 years after Eiffel's death.

 

In June 1990 a French court ruled that a special lighting display on the tower in 1989 to mark the tower's 100th. anniversary was an "original visual creation" protected by copyright. The Société d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE) now considers any illumination of the tower to be a separate work of art that falls under copyright. As a result, the SNTE alleges that it is illegal to publish contemporary photographs of the lit tower at night without permission in France and some other countries for commercial use. For this reason, it is rare to find images or videos of the lit tower at night on stock image sites, and media outlets rarely broadcast images or videos of it.

 

The imposition of copyright has been controversial. The Director of Documentation for what was then called the Société Nouvelle d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SNTE), Stéphane Dieu, commented in 2005:

 

"It is really just a way to manage commercial

use of the image, so that it isn't used in ways

of which we don't approve".

 

SNTE made over €1 million from copyright fees in 2002.

 

The copyright claim itself has never been tested in courts to date, and there has never been an attempt to track down millions of netizens who have posted and shared their images of the illuminated tower on the Internet worldwide. However, the potential for litigation exists for the commercial use of such images, for example in a magazine, on a film poster, or on product packaging.

 

French law allows pictures incorporating a copyrighted work as long as their presence is incidental or accessory to the subject being represented. Therefore, SETE may be unable to claim copyright on photographs of Paris which happen to include the lit tower.

 

An Earthquake in Chile

 

So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?

 

Well, on the 4th. November 1913, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 killed 150 people in the Apurimac Region of Chile.

 

A Train Crash in France

 

Also on that day, at least 39 people were killed near Melun when the Marseille-Lyon-Paris express train collided with a local train.

 

Gig Young

 

The 4th. November 1913 also marked the birth in St. Cloud, Minnesota of Byron Barr. He adopted the stage name Gig Young.

 

Gig was an American film actor, and recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Gig died in 1978.

 

Paul Irniger

 

The Swiss serial killer, Paul Irniger, was also born on that day, in Izerbash, Canton of Schwyz. He was executed by guillotine in 1939.

 

Paul Irniger was the last person to be sentenced to death and executed in Switzerland after a criminal trial in the canton of Zug. He is also the last person sentenced to death in several cantons, before a new Penal Code, without capital punishment for civilian crimes, was adopted in 1942.

 

Irniger's mother had several criminal records for fraud and other offenses. After the early death of his father, the six-year-old grew up in the Walterswil children's home. As a teenager, he tried several times, unsuccessfully, to enter a monastery.

 

After working as an unskilled worker in Baden, he began an apprenticeship as a technical draftsman, which he broke off after a few months. He went to Interlaken, where he found a job in the Hotel Beau-Rivage, but started a small fire there.

 

Subsequently, he was admitted to the forced education institution in Aarburg, where he learned to be a carpenter. After his release, he graduated from the recruit school in Lucerne.

 

On the 5th. December 1933, Irniger took the train to Zug and from there took a taxi in the direction of Baar. He shot the taxi driver near Baar and fled with 60 francs. Shortly afterwards, he was arrested for fraud and sent to the Sedel prison in Lucerne.

 

Irniger managed to escape; he went to Einsiedeln, where he disguised himself as a Trappist priest and read masses and heard confessions in various churches.

 

After the imposture was discovered, Irniger was imprisoned for a few months, but he still had not been connected to the murder near Baar.

 

After his release from prison, Irniger went to Ticino, where he met a woman and tried his hand at selling vacuum cleaners. He also committed various break-ins.

 

On the 9th. August 1937, he was arrested in Rapperswil and taken to the police station. There, he shot a police officer and fled towards Lake Zürich, with various people chasing him. On the run, Irniger also shot one of his pursuers, but was then caught by the angry population.

 

Irniger was brought to St. Gallen, where, in addition to the two homicides committed in Rapperswil, he also confessed to the murder in Baar. He was brought to justice and sentenced to death for the murders in Rapperswil in April 1938, but pardoned by the Grand Council of the Canton of St. Gallen to life imprisonment.

 

Since criminal law in Switzerland was a matter for the cantons before 1942, Irniger could only be convicted in St. Gallen for the crimes committed in that canton. In the trial for the murder in Baar, Irniger was also sentenced to death in the canton of Zug.

 

He withdrew his appeal to the higher court itself and waived a petition for clemency, so that the judgment in the first instance became final. Irniger was then executed on the 25th. August 1939 in the prison in Zug using the guillotine borrowed from Lucerne.

 

The canton of Zug received letters of application from 186 individuals who volunteered to be the executioner. The psychiatrist Boris Pritzker conducted extensive interviews with 115 of them.

 

The anonymous executioner selected from these volunteers, known as Arthur X., later fell ill with paranoid schizophrenia and died in 1960 in the Burghölzli psychiatric clinic.

 

Pritzker's conversations with the executioner candidates were first published in 1993. On the basis of the letters of application and Pritzker's interviews, the play "The Last Executioner" was performed in Zug in 1998.

AB1600s behind left (bare) and right (softbox) for direct light, with ambient from them bouncing around the white walls of the small apartment.

The Ghostbusters Firehouse built in the scale of the Creator Bike Shop and Cafe. Not big enough to park the Ecto-1 in, but big enough to look neat on a road baseplate.

 

Inside we've got a containment unit, fire pole, and a small apartment suitable for one Ghostbuster.

 

Again, I have some details I want to refine on the inside as well, but I'm happy with the progress so far. Still, I welcome any feedback on it.

(Squad support variant)

(One more variant left to go)

 

//DATA-LOG-003//

About a week passed with nothing happening.

There was nothing much to do in security, as I said before, the Techron's run a tight ship. Minor incident involving a merchant ship that tried to dock without clearance. The Techron security almost blew it out of the sky just for that. With some scrambling, quick thinking, and some clever speaking on my part, I managed to convince them to let them dock anyways.

In return, I got stuck playing babysitter for them. Wasn't too bad, they were somewhat frightened from their near miss with death, so they did their business as quick as they could. Still, took half of the day, and I had to deal with emotionally wrecked civilians. The merchant had his family with him. His daughter was crying without cease. It annoyed me to the point that I tried to get her to stop. My bad, apparently, for she proceeded to blurt out her entire, dull, life in an overly dramatic portrayal of very normal events, problems, and feelings.

Needless to say, when the day was over, I wanted only three things. Silence. Sleep. Coffee.

I opened the door wearily, to be greated by a metallic ping. Tired as I may have been, it took me only a blink to recognise and place the sound. A trip wire. Great. I hurled myself to the floor just as the explosives went off, proppelling rubber balls at high speeds across my small apartment.

The charges had been set on either side, slightly angled towards the door, to create a brutal crossfire of stunning projectiles. A few grazed the back of my patrol attire as I went down. I rolled to the side and reached out to a corner of furniture. Just as men clothed in black stormed the still dark room, I found it: the string. My own trap. I pulled the string and quickly covered my ears as it set off two stun grenades I had hidden by the door.

I got up as quick as I could and closed in with the nearest attacker. Four men, dressed in black, well armed. I needed to be fast.

I siezed his gun, slamming it up into his face while aiming a kick at his kneecap. Didn't hit it quite right to break it, but it did succeed in knocking him over. I brought the butt of his rifle down hard on his throat with a wet crunch. I hurled his rife at the two farthest men, to keep them disoriented and off their feet while I engaged the third man. I took two fast steps and pushed off, landing a solid kick to the man's chest as he attempted to raise his rifle to fire on me. I pulled my rifle, still slung over my shoulder from patrol, up and fired a sustained burst into the other two men. They were geared for stealth, not heavy combat, nothing stopped my bullets from ripping through them. Not that it would have helped, as a mercenary I found it was well worth my money to invest in more expensive armor peircing munitions. I turned to see the third man pulling himself off the ground from my kick. We locked eyes, he knew he couldn't get a shot in first, closed his eyes in expectation of the bullet. It came, but not where he expected. I shot him in the arm, causing him to let go of his rifle and hit the ground with a gasp of pain. I walked over quickly, kicked the gun away, and lifted him up against the wall.

I was going to ask him who had hired him, what he was after. But it was just then that I became aware of a numbing feeling spreading from my shoulder. I dropped the man and sluggishly reached over to feel my shoulder. Tranq dart. Wonderful.

//end//

 

(As always, I really appreciate and love getting feedback. Notes and comments are very welcome)

Nephew-in-law Claes, Grandnephews Ollie & Finny,

photographed by Niece Mare

 

A class trip to Hawaii for the boys who are being home schooled.

Years ago Mare & Claes bought a small apartment in Honolulu,

they are staying in for a few weeks between tenants.

Bettenhaus Rooms, 2404 1/2 State Street, Bettendorf, Iowa. This place is a small apartment building.

My son gave me this Ikea bookcase when he moved to a smaller apartment. I recently moved things around to make the radio display a bit more orderly. (a few cameras crept in too)

IRONMONGER’S HOUSE

 

The Ironmonger's House is a typical 19th century wooden building in Swedish towns. The fittings in the ironmonger's date originally from the 1880s though the interior was partially modernized in the 1930s. The building houses has two shops and a small apartment. The goods on display are typical of the three main groups of customers: farmers, builders and householders.

 

Wikipedia

  

Anker Henrik Jørgensen (born 13 July 1922) is a former Danish Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. Between 1972 and 1981 he led five cabinets as Prime Minister. He led or represented the Social Democratic Party for well over 30 years. His legacy is ambivalent. Politically he is considered by many to have been largely unsuccessful and having failed to mitigate the impact of the economic crisis of the 1970s and 1980s. Nonetheless he is generally respected and even loved throughout Denmark for his personal integrity and down-to-earth personality, often exemplified in his refusal of moving into the official Prime Minister residence Marienborg, preferring to stay with his wife in their small apartment in a working class area of Copenhagen. He has been described as not having the image of a strong or visionary leader, but through his down-to-earth and earnest demeanor he managed to maintain a wide support for the Danish welfare state in the population. In 1992 he was chosen to travel to Iraq to negotiate the release of a group of Danish hostages with Saddam Hussein, a task which he successfully accomplished.

Griante is a village situated on a plateau on the West side of Lake Como in the Northern Italian region of Lombardy. About 40 minutes by train from Milan, Lake Como is recognized as the most beautiful and romantic of all the Italian alpine lakes. Its steep mountains, relatively narrow width, snowy distant peaks, and colorful lakeside villages, combine to create spectacular scenic vistas. Griante's particular location gives it, without a doubt, the most beautiful landscape vistas of all of Lake Como. It's no wonder that so many grand villas such as Villa Carlotta, Villa Collina, Villa Margherita, Villa Giuseppina, and Villa Norella have been built here and now make up the majority of its territory.

 

Griante's particular charm has been appreciated by a number of famous people. Giuseppe Verdi composed opera at his publisher's villa in Griante. Marie-Henri Beyle, better known as Stendhal, spent time writing in Griante and set the Chartreuse de Parme on Lake Como. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the famous American poet frequented Griante and wrote a poem about the area. And Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, before becoming Pope Pio XI, spent time in a small apartment in the centre of the town.

 

LAKE COMO ITALY AUTUM 2012

 

See where this picture was taken. [?]

Towards the end of his life, my father-in-law lived with us in our small apartment. He would sleep only a little moving from his favoured chair to the living room...especially at night where he became more active, and his memory and grip on the current point in time would drift.

 

I would sit with him through the night into the very early hours

of the morning, when my wife would wake up and take over...

not really talking, just being there to make sure he didn't hurt himself. He'd wander in body and mind, grasping sometimes at things in the air he could only see, holding conversations he could only hear...

 

...he passed away not long after these photos aged 86.

 

The lobby of a small apartment building. (1818)

This little girl at Cantagalo slum asked me to take a picture of her (many children there asked me!). When I asked her if she want I send the picture to her, she said "No, I just want you take a picture of me." "Oh, okay...", I said. Haha.

 

In Ipanema district is Cantagalo slum. Ipanema is one of the most valued districts of the city with human development index comparable to European countries. Here a small apartment can cost million dollars. Of course, the reality of the slums are different, having the worst human development index of the city... Finally this is starting to change after the State obtain to expel the drug gangs and implement many social activities in the place, as they did in some other slums.

 

Cantagalo slum, Ipanema district, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Have a nice day! :¬)

 

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===Gotham City, years ago===

 

*In a small apartment, Drury Walker sits with his

older brother. They've only just moved to the city and it's been a hard few weeks, not least because their father's career isn't going well at all. Yet, on the sofa, a bowl of ice cream in hand, they sit watching TV*

 

Spock-*on TV* The ship... out of danger?

 

Kirk- Yes.

 

Spock- Do not grieve, Admiral. It is logical. The needs of the many, outweigh...

 

Kirk- The needs of the few.

 

Spock- Or the one. I never took the Kobayashi Maru test until now. What do you think of my solution?

 

Kirk- Spock.

 

Spock- [Gasping] I have been... and always shall be... your friend.

 

...

 

Spock- [Gasping] Live long... and prosper.

 

*Drury wipes away his tears with his sleeve. Norbert notices this and puts an arm around him*

 

Norbert- You know it's not real.

 

Drury- Yeah, I know.

 

*His brother can tell Drury's not convinced*

 

Norbert- Besides.. he comes back in the next one.

 

Drury- Really?

 

Norbert- Ye-

 

*He's quickly smacked in the face with a cushion*

 

Norbert- Hey, what the hell?!

 

Drury- Uh, spoilers?

 

*Norbert smiles. And throws the cushion back at his brother*

 

=====Now=====

 

Vale- -Miranda Gaige Psychiatric Hospital is closed during a management restructure. It's patients are reportedly being relocated to Arkham Asylum until further-

 

Ryder- -Blackgate casualties continue to mount. With the discovery of a cave system adjoining the sewer system beneath the prison, as well as the recovery of several mutilated bodies, police believe they have discovered the most recent hideout of Waylon Jones, alias-

 

Vale- -Danto Twag has announced his candidacy for mayor with much of the blame for the Blackgate incident being directed at Mayor Grange

 

Ryder- -What appears to be the start of a brutal gang war between the False Face Society and a currently unknown party has led to the deaths of fourteen citizens caught in the crossfire-

Vale- -Blackgate's inmates, including Ex-Mayor Drury Walker, are currently enroute to-

 

=============

 

Arkham Asylum. There could be no hospital more infamous. Drury used that term loosely. If Arkham was a hospital, Bane was a green grocer. The image almost made him crack a smile, something he'd been struggling to do for a while...

For one thing, he no longer had his photograph, stolen by Mister Camera during the Blackgate incident, one of the few items he had been allowed to have. Secondly, and more importantly, he missed Miranda herself... She hadn't visited him since he was sentenced, although ultimately he understood why. He knew she was scared, and he was too. For a few minutes he just sat down on his mattress. Until a glass bottle went flying past his head. He supposed, that was the work of his new cellmate, another of Arkham's lost causes he supposed. Drury was, of course very familiar with the Asylum, having spent at least ten years breaking out and being brought back. Yet, in recent times he would never have considered he'd be here again. Not on this side of the bars. But here he was again, back in the madhouse

"Emerson," called the security guard of Stryker's Island Penitentiary. Neal Emerson, the supervillain known as Doctor Polaris, raised his head from the composition notebook he was writing in.

 

"Huh?" he asked, placing the red crayon down into the nook of the book. "It isn't meal time is it?"

 

The guard stood at the glass, meta-dampening wristbands in his hand. "You got a visitor," he informed, placing the bands into the delivery slot.

 

Neal was confused, but took the bands. After locking them on his wrists, he stood and held out his hands, showing they were indeed on and active.

 

The cell opened, Neal stepping out to see multiple guards ready to escort him. He shuffled to the group and began to walk, the officers taking him directly to the visitor center.

 

"Who is it?" he asked, his head looking at the officer to his left.

 

The man looked at him before looking down once more. "Don't know," he explained, "was just told to get ya'."

 

Neal nodded, looking to the ground slightly. He didn't have anyone that he could possibly know that would want to speak with him. He'd made a couple of associates in prison, but that's all they were. Associates… associates to the destructive lifestyle of crime.

 

His mind was broken from the thought as the door to the visitor center opened. His eyes widened as he looked inside, spotting the figure standing at the table.

 

John Stewart, the Green Lantern.

 

His pace slowed as his eyes narrowed. 'Green Lantern? What's he here for? A lie? Another one? No, he wouldn't, he-' The feeling of a guard pushing forward made his pace resume, but his cautiousness stayed. The hero's face had a somewhat sorrowful look.

 

His body lowered onto the chair set up for him. "What are you doing here?" he snarled, more aggressive than he planned.

 

John's expression hardly changed, only looking more regretful than it already had. "Hey Neal," he greeted, placing the file he held down onto the table. "I… I need you to take a look at this."

 

Neal looked at him cautiously, but flipped the file open. Scanning the documents, he took note of multiple research reports.

 

His research reports.

 

"What?" he questioned, staring up at the Lantern. "What do you have these for? How did you find them?"

 

"These were found at a small apartment complex in the Eastside," he explained, placing a second file full of pictures down into the table. "These are some images collected from the building."

 

Neal once again opened the file, his mouth parting slightly in a gasp. The building looked distorted, it's shape crushed and twisted. The next picture showed one of the building's rooms. There were multiple objects out of place, all of the metal from appliances to utensils converged into a single ball of combined metal.

 

In the corner of the small room was some type of device, one that Neal recognized instantly. "That device… it looks like…"

 

"The same device that gave you your powers," John confirmed. "We've checked the video feeds from your incident, it's an exact replica."

 

"So what is it? What happened?" Neal asked, confused by the information.

 

John closed the files, picking them up in the process. "The apartment was in the name of John Nichol, we believe that he may be a copycat killer in a sense," he explained.

 

Neal's eyes widened, the implication finally setting in.

 

"We believe there is a second Doctor Polaris."

 

-^-

 

Neal sat in his cell, the notebook and crayon sitting idle on his desk. His mind was clouded with the events of today. A copycat had recreated the experiment… had used his research to give himself magnokinesis.

 

He was a villain, dubbed a villain and had accepted it. He had committed multiple felonies, he had hurt people. He nearly murdered someone, but it still felt wrong. He still knew it was wrong every time he'd rob a bank or attack the police.

 

It made the offer he was given ten times harder to make.

 

"I want your help," John explained. "Help me track him down."

 

"Tracking him down… it's the right thing to do…" he mumbled, lying in his cot. "Atonement almost…"

 

'Why should we?' the voice in his head questioned. 'He stole our life! Lied to us and locked us away!'

 

"No… no," Neal denied, holding onto his head. "I did… I ruined it, not him. He was only being a hero."

 

'A hero who had you locked away in a cell…' the voice continued. 'Locked in a cell with me.'

 

Neal couldn't argue it. He had been classed with Dissociative Identity Disorder since he was a child, even enrolling at CCU once they offered assistance with helping him. The accident however, the same that gave him his extraordinary abilities, had altered his psychological disorder.

 

His other half wasn't a second personality anymore, it was it's own entity entirely. A voice in his head.

 

The promise John had made to him… it gave him hope; hope that the voice in his head could be silenced… but it was a lie. His first arrest sent him to Stryker's Island. Not a mental hospital, not somewhere to get help. A prison island for super criminals. The promise was broken.

 

'Accepting the offer was stupid,' it spoke, "but we can use it to escape."

 

Neal finished the sentence with a smirk.

 

-^-

 

"I'm glad you agreed to help, Neal," spoke John, a smile on his face. "I know it's probably difficult to work with me, but stopping this new Polaris is important."

 

Neal narrowed his eyes at the man, the meta-dampening bands tight around his wrists. "Yeah, sure it is." He looked around, then back to the man, questioning, "So what the hell are we doing here?"

 

John let out a sigh, pulling out a device that looked like a calculator. "This was developed by CCU a while back," he explained, showing off the device. "It's used to track your magnetic ability."

 

Neal's face became struck with confusion, staring at the man. "Then what the hell am I here for?" he shouted, anger slightly flaring.

 

"I need you to tell me how to take him down," he noted, "because you know how his powers work."

 

This made Neal pause, staring at the Lantern for a moment before bursting out in laughter. "Oh… oh that's funny," he chuckled, calming down the frantic laughter. "Like I'd tell you how to beat me. You want me to open up my playbook? Maybe toss you a list of my biggest fears to go along with it?"

 

"Neal, please," pleaded John, stopping in his tracks to look at him. "This isn't some kind of game…"

 

"Why?" he snapped back, his eyebrows slanting downwards. "You do fine against me already. What more do you need?!"

 

"Nichol is fine with killing innocents!"

 

The words cause Neal's eyes to widen, his mouth slightly parting.

 

"He… he what?" he asked, shock full in his voice.

 

"He's murdered four people already… innocent men and women that… that didn't deserve it…"

 

Before Neal could respond, the device in John's hand ushered a small beep. Both looked at the device, then back to each other.

 

"He's coming," John notified, his head turning. "There are too many people to evacuate. Neal, I know you're not a bad person, so please."

  

Neal opened his mouth, but no words came out. John looked at him with pleading eyes, but Neal couldn't speak.

  

Suddenly, the ground began to rip up, pipes pulled from beneath the street. Lamp posts flew into the air, stop signs and cars swirling around a center mass like a tornado. Both of them looked down the street, Neal's eyes widening at the sight.

 

Full blue armor, a dark blue cloak draping down his back. "Finally," the man called out, "I've been waiting on you."

 

John's ring sparked, his body encompassing in a glow. "Well, here I am!"

 

The floating man tilted his head to the side, a small chuckle escaping him. Suddenly a pipe burst from the ground, the metal snaking around John. "Not, Lantern," he corrected, his helmet shifting to Neal. "I'm here for the original Doctor Polaris."

 

"What do you want with Emerson!?" John shouted as he created a buzzsaw.

 

"He's been Doctor Polaris for years," he announced, adding more metal around John to keep him ensnared. "There's knowledge that comes from experience… you can teach me what you know, Doctor Emerson."

 

"Why would I help you?!" Neal shouted back. "You're a murderer!"

 

"It was not too long ago that you attempted murdering a man who wronged you," Nichol responded, lowering himself to the street. "I merely wish to do the same."

 

"And the innocent victims?"

 

"Casualties of war are expected," he replied, raising an open palm in front of him. "No bloodshed is too much as long as I receive justice."

 

"This isn't justice," Neal yelled, pipes wrapping around his ankles. "It's vengeance… and it's the right path."

 

'Side with him now,' Neal's dark side said. 'He's going to hurt you otherwise.'

 

"Please, Doctor Emerson," Nichol pleaded, raising a stop sign into the air. "I don't want to hurt you… we could be partners!"

 

Neal began hyperventilating, his eyes bouncing between John, Nichol, and the innocent bystanders running away.

 

'Do not let some faulty moral code ruin us,' the voice shouted, it's words louder than before. 'We are evil! He wants what we want!

 

'Don't let the name Doctor Polaris fall to a low like this!'

 

"Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up!" Emerson cried, holding onto his head. "Go away… LEAVE ME ALONE!"

 

Nichol sighed as he closed his hand, shaping the stop sign into a spear. "Then I am sorry, Doctor Emerson," he said, aiming the metal at Neal's chest, "but I can't allow the only man who knows my weaknesses to live."

 

A blast of green energy sent Nichol flying, the stop sign dropping to the ground. Burst from entrapment, John cut Neal free. "Get to safety, Neal!"

 

"Y-yeah…" he mumbled, stumbling away.

 

"No!" Nichol shouted, launching a pipe through Neal's ankle, causing the man to fall to the floor.

 

"Aggh!"

 

"Neal!"

 

"I'll deal with you later, Emerson!" Nichol shouted, his head turning back to John. "Now it's time to kill a Green Lantern."

 

Neal watched as the two did battle, crawling to the nearest wall and pulling himself to a stand. From there, he limped into the closest alleyway, taking some semblance of shelter behind a dumpster.

 

"What am I gonna do…"

 

'The pain could stop if we'd only side with him.'

 

"I told you to shut up…"

 

'He could set us free from that hellhole.'

 

"Stop… talking… to me…"

 

'You're putting other lives before our own!'

 

"They're innocent people!"

 

'So are we'

 

"I tried to murder someone!"

 

'Someone who deserved it.'

 

"I can't god!"

 

Neal was rocking back and forth, the adrenaline in his body beginning to lower. 'What do I do, what do I do, what do I do, what do I do?'

 

'If we don't let him know the contingency, he'll kill us.'

 

"He wants the failsafe so damn bad?" Neal asked, shoving his hand into his mouth.

 

'Stop… that's a contingency for you! If you're ever taken under control of a hero!' the voice berated.

 

Neal ignored it, as well as the agonizing pain in his mouth. With a pull, he ripped out one of his molars, as well as a chunk of his gum. Neal began to cough up blood but resolved himself. Wiping the crimson liquid from his lip, he slowly made his way out of the alley.

 

'If you do this, Green Lantern will always be able to stop us!' the voice screamed in an attempt to make Neal run. 'We won't be a villain anymore, we'll be a two-bit thug! Listen to me!'

 

"I won't let the name Doctor Polaris fall like this…" Neal spoke, exiting the alleyway.

 

'I see it now… He's me…' Neal thought, limping forward towards the fight. 'The me that lost the battle… the one that let the monster take control… I'll stop you… I won't let anyone die…

 

"I have to stop myself."

 

-^-

 

"You are too weak, Green Lantern!" Nichol cackled, his wrist flicking a semi truck in the hero's direction. John formed a bubble around himself, blocking the attack.

 

John fired a blast of energy back. "Stand down, Nichol!" he shouted, blocking another strike of a lamppost.

 

"Once I end you, Emerson falls," he announced, raising a large pipe from underground. "Then I exact my revenge."

 

"You want me, you bastard!?"

 

Both John and Nichol turned their heads, eyeing Neal; the pipe was still lodged in his ankle and blood streamed from the corner of his mouth.

 

"Neal, no!"

 

Nichol slammed John into the ground with a white sedan before turning to Neal. "Come to the side with me?"

 

"I won't hurt anyone else…" Neal said, clenching his fist. "That means you won't either."

 

"Funny," Nichol responded, flicking up his wrist. The pipe in Neal's leg shifted up, enlarging the wound. The motion caused Neal to drop to his knees, tears now streaming down his face. "Give up now?"

 

"Ha… ah ha ha ha… You really should've looked into the theory of magnetism before giving yourself these powers," Neal with a laugh, looking up with a bloody smile. "Catch!"

 

Neal threw his tooth into the air. As the molar reached its peak height, it froze, shaking lightly. It suddenly shot forward, attaching itself into Nichol's body.

 

"What is this? What's going on?" Nichol shouted as metal from all around began hovering around him.

 

"Nth metal… an extraterrestrial metal that doesn't confide by our laws of physics," Neal explained, panting heavily. "When our powers are used… it acts as a perfect negative charge to all metal…"

 

Metal began soaring through the air and attaching itself to Nichol. "Stop… how do I stop it!?"

 

"The charge'll die out eventually…" Neal said as his vision began to blur. "You'll be in custody by then though… by then you won't be able to hurt anyone else…"

 

'The voice… it's silent… it's nice… peaceful.'

 

-^-

 

Neal's eyes slowly opened, the room around him a bright white. The slow beep to the left of him rang in his ears as he sat up, slowly.

 

"Where?"

 

His hand came up to his mouth, feeling the gauze pad on the inside of his cheek. 'I ripped the contingency… that's right…' he thought, looking around the room.

 

It was a hospital room, not one he recognized. His wrists still adorned the cuffs, but this wasn't Stryker's. He could see, through the darkened window near the door, John Stewart, as well as some kind of doctor?

 

John must've noticed him, as he opened the door and entered the room, the doctor following. The man had dusty orange hair and a cane.

 

"Neal," John greeted, signaling to the doctor next to him. "This is Hunter Zolomon, a trusted ally of one of my friends."

 

"It's a pleasure meet you, Mr. Emerson," Hunter greeted, reaching out his hand. Neal took it hesitantly.

 

"He's a trained psychologist," John said, looking down. "This should've happened years ago… and for that I'm truly sorry, Neal. I just want to make amends with those I've hurt…"

 

"It wasn't just on you, Lantern," Neal said with a sigh. "I can't keep shoving the blame on you.

 

"I am a villain... nothing I do... nothing I do can change that I've hurt people. It isn't isn't who I want to be, but that voice in my head kept urging me towards that life. I'll always be a villain in people's eyes, but maybe... maybe one day, people won't run and scream when they see me soar through the skies. The name Doctor Polaris could give people hope... Maybe... maybe I can still be a hero too."

 

Neal hadn't noticed his eyes began to water, the feeling of wetness on his shirt being the indicator. John nodded, smiling brightly. "I'd like to see that happen, Neal… I'd like to see that happen a lot."

 

"I still have some issues to work out…" Neal said, looking down at his hand. Clenching his fist, he looked back to John with a smile.

 

"You better save one of those seats at the Hall of Justice for me."

(Helena & Grace)

 

Grace : So you never knew your mother ?

 

Helena : Yes.. My father as a LOT of money.. But I see him ...7 or 8 times in my life. There was always a nanny of a buthler to take care of me.

 

Grace : That explain a lot of thing.

 

Helena : Like what ?

 

Grace : I don’t know.. The way you were trying to protect yourself.. You open your heart for the first time to Nick and he Broke it…

 

Helena : It’s the first Time i tell it to someone.. It’s the first time I tell something to someone at all.. I’ve always been really secret.. But what about you ? Your family ? A big white house with a housewives as a mother ?

 

Grace : In fact we were really poor. I grew up in chicagos.. I’ve been doing cheerleading some years and Mattel hire me to represent So In Style with my friends.. I’m the last one then… We were 6 child in a small apartment.

 

Helena : It wasnt easy for you too then.. In a different way.

 

Grace: Yeah.. But one thing for sure I never miss any love… It makes me so sad for you.. I’m happy that you told me.

 

Helena : Don’t tell anyone..

 

Grace :I promise !

 

Helena : When we will be back at Home… Can we do some night like that.. Talking..

 

Grace :Yeah we can do it as much as you want… it’s not like if we had to wake up earlier to be at work.. They never need us. Sometimes I wonder why we are so many models… they don’t use us anyway ..

 

Helena : I don’t know...it’s safer that way I guess.

 

Grace : Do you think Steven love Hayden ?

 

Helena : I can’t tell you… I mean, I’ve been bitching everybody around for months..

 

Grace : I don’t know.. Whatever

 

Helena : Did you tell him how you feel ?

 

Grace : Yeah… at christmas.. He told me he was engaged so..

 

Helena : That really suck…

 

Grace : I think we should get some sleep.

 

Helena : I’m sad the tour’s over… I will mis you.

 

Grace : I will be there anytime.

 

Evan lives in a small apartment in Brooklyn. He doesn't have much space, so he keeps a few guitars in our attic.

Built in 1892 by an unknown individual, this distinctive and ornate “wedding cake”-like eclectic Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival-style townhouse stands on Russell Street in the Mutter Gottes Historic District of Covington, Kentucky.

 

Prior to the construction of the house, according to an 1886 Sanborn Fire Insurance map, the site was home to a wooden duplex, likely built sometime around the mid-19th Century.

 

The house has a heavily detailed brick facade with decorative brick trim, polychromatic ceramic tiles featuring the busts of Roman emperors, arched two-over-two windows, and a three-tiered front bay window that transforms from being rectangular on the 1st floor, to trapezoidal on the 2nd floor, and semi-circular on the 3rd floor, with the one-over-one windows on this portion of the house featuring multi-colored semi-circular stained glass transoms

 

The house additionally features many intact historic elements inside, including the original staircase that stretches from the first floor side entrance up to the 3rd floor, original doors and trim throughout, and original tiles and fireplace surrounds on the 1st floor and 2nd floor.

 

The house, originally a single-family home, featured a garden to the side and several one-story wooden porches on the side and rear, as well as sheds in the backyard.

 

By the early 20th Century, the house became the home of former Wurlitzer Music Company employee and industrialist Albert B. Koett, born in 1863 in Weimar, Germany, whom founded the Kelley-Koett (Keleket) manufacturing company behind a previous residence on Bakewell Street, where Koett worked with J. Robert Kelley on his innovations to X-Ray machines.

 

Koett left Wurlitzer in 1905 to work full time with the Kelley-Koett Manufacturing Company with John Robert Kelley, as an innovator and industrialist, innovating the "Keleket" X-Ray machine, utilized widely throughout the United States by the 1920s. The company expanded to the point that it occupied a large building on 4th Street in Covington and an additional building on York Street in Cincinnati's West End.

 

While owned by Koett, the house was enlarged, adding a masonry addition atop the roof of the two-story rear ell, a wooden addition on the rear of the house over a rear porch, and a new front porch with a red tile roof and wire brick columns.

 

The house was divided up into several small apartment units in the mid-20th Century after Koett's death, leading to the addition of a metal fire escape to the side, and reconfiguration of the interior, with the house being purchased and rehabilitated in the mid-1980s, returning to usage a single-family home, with a one-bedroom apartment on the third floor.

Small apartment building on Kaiolu Street just south of Kuhio Avenue in Waikiki, one block ewa from Lewers Street. The south of Kuhio section of Kaiolu Street is now the site of the Ritz-Carlton Residences condominium hotel. Vintage red-bordered cardboard mount “Kodachrome Transparency” slide produced between 1950 and 1955. Other slides in the group date the year at 1955.

 

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Project 365.2021: 062 A Colorful Flower Pot

 

After days of unremitting early spring dreariness, Wednesday the 3rd emerged bright and cheerful ... which was something I really needed on my way to the dentist's! The pot here is out front of a small apartment building, and it has some perennials (sage and rosemary) alongside some pansies, greeting visitors with extra cheer.

 

[CE3A4D]

A dated photo of my cousin's small apartment nearing completion. She has since sold it and moved into another home. I was attracted by the spartan look and the bright green walls, so I shot this picture.

The Postcard

 

A carte postale that was published by N.D. It was posted in Rue Amelie, Paris using a 10c stamp on Monday the 23rd. April 1906.

 

The card was sent to:

 

Mrs. Schneider,

38, Gratwicke Road,

Worthing,

Sussex,

England.

 

The pencilled message on the divided back of the card was as follows:

 

"This is being written at

the top of the Eiffel Tower,

miles above the earth.

I leave Paris this afternoon

at 2.40, and arrive London

at 10.45 tonight.

Keep this for me.

Love to all,

Phil."

 

The Eiffel Tower

 

The Eiffel Tower is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.

 

Locally nicknamed "La Dame de Fer" ("Iron Lady"), it was constructed from 1887 to 1889 as the entrance to the 1889 World's Fair.

 

The tower was initially criticised by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but it has become a global cultural icon of France, and one of the most recognisable structures in the world. The Eiffel Tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world; 6.91 million people ascended it in 2015.

 

The tower is 324 metres tall, about the same height as an 81-storey building, and the tallest structure in Paris. Its base is square, measuring 125 metres on each side.

 

During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to become the tallest man-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years until the Chrysler Building in New York City was finished in 1930. It was the first structure in the world to surpass both the 200 meter and 300 meter mark in height.

 

Due to the addition of a broadcasting aerial at the top of the tower in 1957, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building by 5.2 metres. Excluding transmitters, the Eiffel Tower is the second tallest free-standing structure in France after the Millau Viaduct.

 

The tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the first and second levels. The top level's upper platform is 276 m above the ground – the highest observation deck accessible to the public in the European Union. The climb from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the climb from the first level to the second. Although there is a staircase to the top level, it is usually accessible only by lift.

 

Origin of The Eiffel Tower

 

The design of the Eiffel Tower is attributed to Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, two senior engineers working for the Compagnie des Établissements Eiffel. It was envisioned after discussion about a suitable centrepiece for the proposed 1889 Exposition Universelle, a world's fair to celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution.

 

Eiffel openly acknowledged that inspiration for a tower came from the Latting Observatory built in New York City in 1853.

 

In May 1884, working at home, Koechlin made a sketch of their idea, described by him as:

 

"A great pylon, consisting of four lattice girders

standing apart at the base and coming together

at the top, joined together by metal trusses at

regular intervals".

 

Eiffel initially showed little enthusiasm, but he did approve further study, and the two engineers then asked Stephen Sauvestre, the head of company's architectural department, to contribute to the design. Sauvestre added decorative arches to the base of the tower, a glass pavilion to the first level, and other embellishments.

 

The new version gained Eiffel's support: he bought the rights to the patent on the design which Koechlin, Nougier, and Sauvestre had taken out, and the design was exhibited at the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in the autumn of 1884 under the company name.

 

On the 30th. March 1885, Eiffel presented his plans to the Société des Ingénieurs Civils; after discussing the technical problems and emphasising the practical uses of the tower, he finished his talk by saying:

 

"The tower would symbolise not only the art

of the modern engineer, but also the century

of Industry and Science in which we are living,

and for which the way was prepared by the great

scientific movement of the eighteenth century

and by the Revolution of 1789, to which this

monument will be built as an expression of

France's gratitude".

 

Little progress was made until 1886, when Jules Grévy was re-elected as president of France and Édouard Lockroy was appointed as minister for trade. A budget for the exposition was passed and, on the 1st. May, Lockroy announced an alteration to the terms of the open competition being held for a centrepiece to the exposition.

 

This effectively made the selection of Eiffel's design a foregone conclusion, as entries had to include a study for a 300 m four-sided metal tower on the Champ de Mars. On the 12th. May, a commission was set up to examine Eiffel's scheme and its rivals, which, a month later, decided that all the proposals except Eiffel's were either impractical or lacking in details.

 

After some debate about the exact location of the tower, a contract was signed on the 8th. January 1887. This was signed by Eiffel acting in his own capacity rather than as the representative of his company. He was granted 1.5 million francs toward the construction costs: less than a quarter of the estimated 6.5 million francs.

 

Eiffel was to receive all income from the commercial exploitation of the tower during the exhibition and for the following 20 years. He later established a separate company to manage the tower, putting up half the necessary capital himself.

 

Artists' Criticism of The Tower Before it Was Built

 

The proposed tower drew criticism from those who did not believe it was feasible, and those who objected on artistic grounds. Prior to the Eiffel Tower's construction, no structure had ever been constructed to a height of 300 m, or even 200 m for the matter, and many people believed it was impossible.

 

These objections were an expression of a long-standing debate in France about the relationship between architecture and engineering. It came to a head as work began at the Champ de Mars: a "Committee of Three Hundred" (one member for each metre of the tower's height) was formed, led by the prominent architect Charles Garnier.

 

The committee included some of the most important figures of the arts, such as William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Guy de Maupassant, Charles Gounod and Jules Massenet. A petition called "Artists against the Eiffel Tower" was sent to the Minister of Works and Commissioner for the Exposition, Adolphe Alphand, and it was published by Le Temps on the 14th. February 1887:

 

"We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and

passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched

beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with

all our indignation in the name of slighted French

taste, against the erection of this useless and

monstrous Eiffel Tower.

To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment

a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a

gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric

bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre,

the Dome of Les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of

our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly

dream.

And for twenty years we shall see stretching like a blot

of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of

bolted sheet metal".

 

Gustave Eiffel responded to these criticisms by comparing his tower to the Egyptian pyramids:

 

"My tower will be the tallest edifice ever erected

by man. Will it not also be grandiose in its way?

And why would something admirable in Egypt

become hideous and ridiculous in Paris?"

 

These criticisms were also dealt with by Édouard Lockroy in a letter of support written to Alphand, sardonically saying:

 

"Judging by the stately swell of the rhythms, the beauty

of the metaphors, the elegance of its delicate and precise style, one can tell this protest is the result of collaboration

of the most famous writers and poets of our time".

 

He went on to say that anyway, the protest was irrelevant since the project had been decided upon months before, and construction on the tower was already under way.

 

Indeed, Garnier was a member of the Tower Commission that had examined the various proposals, and had raised no objection. Eiffel was similarly unworried, pointing out to a journalist that it was premature to judge the effect of the tower solely on the basis of the drawings, that the Champ de Mars was distant enough from the monuments mentioned in the protest for there to be little risk of the tower overwhelming them, and putting the aesthetic argument for the tower:

 

"Do not the laws of natural forces always

conform to the secret laws of harmony?"

 

Some of the protesters changed their minds when the tower was built; others remained unconvinced. Guy de Maupassant supposedly ate lunch in the tower's restaurant every day because it was the one place in Paris where the tower was not visible.

 

By 1918, it had become a symbol of Paris and of France after Guillaume Apollinaire wrote a nationalist poem in the shape of the tower (a calligram) to express his feelings about the war against Germany. Today, it is widely considered to be a remarkable piece of structural art, and is often featured in films and literature.

 

Construction of The Eiffel Tower

 

Work on the foundations started on the 28th. January 1887. Those for the east and south legs were straightforward, with each leg resting on four 2 m concrete slabs, one for each of the principal girders of each leg.

 

The west and north legs, being closer to the river Seine, were more complicated: each slab needed two piles installed by using compressed-air caissons 15 m long and 6 m in diameter driven to a depth of 22 m. These were designed to support the concrete slabs, which were 6 m thick. Each of these slabs supported a block of limestone with an inclined top to bear a supporting shoe for the ironwork.

 

Each shoe was anchored to the stonework by a pair of bolts 10 cm in diameter and 7.5 m long. The foundations were completed on the 30th. June, and the erection of the ironwork began.

 

The visible work on-site was complemented by the enormous amount of exacting preparatory work that took place behind the scenes: the drawing office produced 1,700 general drawings and 3,629 detailed drawings of the different parts needed.

 

The task of drawing the components was complicated by the complex angles involved in the design and the degree of precision required: the position of rivet holes was specified to within 1 mm and angles worked out to one second of arc.

 

The finished components, some already joined together into sub-assemblies, arrived on horse-drawn carts from a factory in the nearby Parisian suburb of Levallois-Perret. They were first bolted together, with the bolts being replaced with rivets as construction progressed. No drilling or shaping was done on site: if any part did not fit, it was sent back to the factory for alteration. In all, 18,038 pieces were joined together using 2.5 million rivets.

 

At first, the legs were constructed as cantilevers, but about halfway to the first level construction was paused to create a substantial timber scaffold. This renewed concerns about the structural integrity of the tower, and sensational headlines such as "Eiffel Suicide!" and "Gustave Eiffel Has Gone Mad: He Has Been Confined in an Asylum" appeared in the tabloid press.

 

At this stage, a small "creeper" crane designed to move up the tower was installed in each leg. They made use of the guides for the lifts which were to be fitted in the four legs. The critical stage of joining the legs at the first level was completed by the end of March 1888.

 

Although the metalwork had been prepared with the utmost attention to detail, provision had been made to carry out small adjustments to precisely align the legs; hydraulic jacks were fitted to the shoes at the base of each leg, capable of exerting a force of 800 tonnes.

 

Although construction involved 300 on-site employees, due to Eiffel's safety precautions and the use of movable gangways, guardrails and screens, only one person died.

 

The Eiffel Tower Lifts

 

Equipping the tower with adequate and safe passenger lifts was a major concern of the government commission overseeing the Exposition. Although some visitors could be expected to climb to the first level, or even the second, lifts clearly had to be the main means of ascent.

 

Constructing lifts to reach the first level was relatively straightforward: the legs were wide enough at the bottom and so nearly straight that they could contain a straight track, and a contract was given to the French company Roux, Combaluzier & Lepape for two lifts to be fitted in the east and west legs.

 

Roux, Combaluzier & Lepape used a pair of endless chains with rigid, articulated links to which the car was attached. Lead weights on some links of the upper or return sections of the chains counterbalanced most of the car's weight. The car was pushed up from below, not pulled up from above. To prevent the chain buckling, it was enclosed in a conduit. At the bottom of the run, the chains passed around 3.9 m diameter sprockets.

 

Installing lifts to the second level was more of a challenge because a straight track was impossible. No French company wanted to undertake the work. The European branch of Otis Brothers & Company submitted a proposal, but this was rejected: the fair's charter ruled out the use of any foreign material in the construction of the tower.

 

The deadline for bids was extended, but still no French companies put themselves forward, and eventually the contract was given to Otis in July 1887. Otis were confident they would eventually be given the contract, and had already started creating designs.

 

The car was divided into two superimposed compartments, each holding 25 passengers, with the lift operator occupying an exterior platform on the first level. Motive power was provided by an inclined hydraulic ram 12.67 m long and 96.5 cm in diameter in the tower leg with a stroke of 10.83 m.

 

The original lifts for the journey between the second and third levels were supplied by Léon Edoux. A pair of 81 m hydraulic rams were mounted on the second level, reaching nearly halfway up to the third level. One lift car was mounted on top of these rams: cables ran from the top of this car up to sheaves on the third level and back down to a second car. Each car only travelled half the distance between the second and third levels and passengers were required to change lifts halfway by means of a short gangway. The 10-ton cars each held 65 passengers.

 

Inauguration and the 1889 exposition

 

The main structural work was completed at the end of March 1889 and, on the 31st. March, Eiffel celebrated by leading a group of government officials, accompanied by representatives of the press, to the top of the tower.

 

Because the lifts were not yet in operation, the ascent was made by foot, and took over an hour, with Eiffel stopping frequently to explain various features. Most of the party chose to stop at the lower levels, but a few, including the structural engineer, Émile Nouguier, the head of construction, Jean Compagnon, the President of the City Council, and reporters from Le Figaro and Le Monde Illustré, completed the ascent. At 2:35 pm, Eiffel hoisted a large Tricolour to the accompaniment of a 25-gun salute fired at the first level.

 

There was still work to be done, particularly on the lifts and facilities, and the tower was not opened to the public until nine days after the opening of the exposition on the 6th. May; even then, the lifts had not been completed.

 

The tower was an instant success with the public, and nearly 30,000 visitors made the 1,710-step climb to the top before the lifts entered service on 26 May. Tickets cost 2 francs for the first level, 3 for the second, and 5 for the top, with half-price admission on Sundays. By the end of the exhibition there had been 1,896,987 visitors.

 

After dark, the tower was lit by hundreds of gas lamps, and a beacon sent out three beams of red, white and blue light. Two searchlights mounted on a circular rail were used to illuminate various buildings of the exposition. The daily opening and closing of the exposition were announced by a cannon at the top.

 

On the second level, the French newspaper Le Figaro had an office and a printing press, where a special souvenir edition, Le Figaro de la Tour, was made. There was also a pâtisserie.

 

At the top of the tower there was a post office where visitors could send letters and postcards as a memento of their visit. Graffitists were also catered for: sheets of paper were mounted on the walls each day for visitors to record their impressions of the tower. Gustave Eiffel described some of the responses as vraiment curieuse ("truly curious").

 

Famous visitors to the tower included the Prince of Wales, Sarah Bernhardt, "Buffalo Bill" Cody (his Wild West show was an attraction at the exposition) and Thomas Edison. Eiffel invited Edison to his private apartment at the top of the tower, where Edison presented him with one of his phonographs, a new invention and one of the many highlights of the exposition. Edison signed the guestbook with this message:

 

"To M. Eiffel the Engineer, the brave builder

of so gigantic and original specimen of

modern Engineering from one who has the

greatest respect and admiration for all

Engineers including the Great Engineer the

Bon Dieu.

Thomas Edison".

 

Eiffel had a permit for the tower to stand for 20 years. It was to be dismantled in 1909, when its ownership would revert to the City of Paris. The City had planned to tear it down (part of the original contest rules for designing a tower was that it should be easy to dismantle) but as the tower proved to be valuable for radio telegraphy, it was allowed to remain after the expiry of the permit, and from 1910 it also became part of the International Time Service.

 

Eiffel made use of his apartment at the top of the tower to carry out meteorological observations, and also used the tower to perform experiments on the action of air resistance on falling bodies.

 

Subsequent Events Associated With The Tower

 

On the 19th. October 1901, Alberto Santos-Dumont, flying his No.6 airship, won a 100,000-franc prize offered by Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe for the first person to make a flight from St. Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and back in less than half an hour.

 

Many innovations took place at the Eiffel Tower in the early 20th century. In 1910, Theodor Wulf measured radiant energy at the top and bottom of the tower. He found more at the top than expected, incidentally discovering what are known today as cosmic rays.

 

On the 4th. February 1912, Austrian tailor Franz Reichelt died after jumping from the first level of the tower (a height of 57 m) to demonstrate his parachute design.

 

In 1914, at the outbreak of the Great War, a radio transmitter located in the tower jammed German radio communications, seriously hindering their advance on Paris and contributing to the Allied victory at the First Battle of the Marne.

 

From 1925 to 1934, illuminated signs for Citroën adorned three of the tower's sides, making it the tallest advertising space in the world at the time. In April 1935, the tower was used to make experimental low-resolution television transmissions. On the 17th. November, an improved 180-line transmitter was installed.

 

On two separate occasions in 1925, the con artist Victor Lustig "sold" the tower for scrap metal.

 

In February 1926, pilot Leon Collet was killed trying to fly under the tower. His aircraft became entangled in an aerial belonging to a wireless station.

 

A bust of Gustave Eiffel by Antoine Bourdelle was unveiled at the base of the north leg on the 2nd. May 1929.

 

In 1930, the tower lost the title of the world's tallest structure when the Chrysler Building in New York City was completed.

 

In 1938, the decorative arcade around the first level was removed.

 

Upon the German occupation of Paris in 1940, the lift cables were cut by the French. In 1940, German soldiers had to climb the tower to hoist a swastika flag, but the flag was so large it blew away just a few hours later, and was replaced by a smaller one.

 

When visiting Paris, Hitler chose to stay on the ground. When the Allies were nearing Paris in August 1944, Hitler ordered General Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, to demolish the tower along with the rest of the city. Von Choltitz disobeyed the order.

 

On the 25th. June, before the Germans had been driven out of Paris, the German flag was replaced with a Tricolour by two men from the French Naval Museum, who narrowly beat three men led by Lucien Sarniguet, who had lowered the Tricolour on the 13th. June 1940 when Paris fell to the Germans.

 

The tower was closed to the public during the occupation, and the lifts were not repaired until 1946.

 

A fire started in the television transmitter on the 3rd. January 1956, damaging the top of the tower. Repairs took a year, and in 1957, the present radio aerial was added to the top. In 1964, the Eiffel Tower was officially declared to be a historical monument by the Minister of Cultural Affairs, André Malraux.

 

According to interviews, in 1967, Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau negotiated a secret agreement with Charles de Gaulle for the tower to be dismantled and temporarily relocated to Montreal to serve as a landmark and tourist attraction during Expo 67.

 

The plan was allegedly vetoed by the company operating the tower out of fear that the French government could refuse permission for the tower to be restored in its original location.

 

In 1982, the original lifts between the second and third levels were replaced after 97 years in service. These had been closed to the public between November and March because the water in the hydraulic drive tended to freeze. The new cars operate in pairs, with one counterbalancing the other, and perform the journey in one stage, reducing the journey time from eight minutes to less than two minutes.

 

At the same time, two new emergency staircases were installed, replacing the original spiral staircases. In 1983, the south pillar was fitted with an electrically driven Otis lift to serve the Jules Verne restaurant.

 

The Fives-Lille lifts in the east and west legs, fitted in 1899, were extensively refurbished in 1986. The cars were replaced, and a computer system was installed to completely automate the lifts. The motive power was moved from the water hydraulic system to a new electrically driven oil-filled hydraulic system.

 

Robert Moriarty flew a Beechcraft Bonanza under the tower on the 31st. March 1984.

 

In 1987, A. J. Hackett made one of his first bungee jumps from the top of the Eiffel Tower, using a special cord he had helped develop. Hackett was arrested by the police.

 

On the 27th. October 1991, Thierry Devaux, along with mountain guide Hervé Calvayrac, performed a series of acrobatic figures while bungee jumping from the second floor of the tower. Facing the Champ de Mars, Devaux used an electric winch to go back up to the second floor. When firemen arrived, he stopped after the sixth jump.

 

The tower is the focal point for New Year's Eve and Bastille Day celebrations in Paris.

 

For its "Countdown to the Year 2000" celebration on the 31st. December 1999, flashing lights and high-powered searchlights were installed on the tower. During the last three minutes of the year, the lights were turned on starting from the base of the tower and continuing to the top to welcome 2000 with a huge fireworks show. The searchlights on top of the tower made it a beacon in Paris's night sky, and 20,000 flashing bulbs gave the tower a sparkly appearance for five minutes every hour on the hour.

 

The tower received its 200,000,000th guest on the 28th. November 2002. The tower has operated at its maximum capacity of about 7 million visitors per year since 2003.

 

In 2004, the Eiffel Tower began hosting a seasonal ice rink on the first level.

 

A glass floor was installed on the first level during the 2014 refurbishment.

 

In 2016, during Valentine's Day, the performance Un Battement by French artist Milène Guermont unfolds among the Eiffel Tower, the Montparnasse Tower and the contemporary artwork Phares installed on the Place de la Concorde. This interactive pyramid-shaped sculpture allows the public to transmit the beating of their hearts thanks to a cardiac sensor. The Eiffel Tower and the Montparnasse Tower also light up to the rhythm of Phares. This is the first time that the Eiffel Tower has interacted with a work of art.

 

The Metal of The Eiffel Tower

 

The wrought iron of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tons, and the addition of lifts, shops and antennae have brought the total weight to approximately 10,100 tons.

 

As a demonstration of the economy of design, if the 7,300 tons of metal in the structure were melted down, it would fill the square base, 125 metres (410 ft) on each side, to a depth of only 6.25 cm. A box surrounding the tower (324 m x 125 m x 125 m) would contain 6,200 tons of air, weighing almost as much as the iron itself.

 

Depending on the ambient temperature, the top of the tower may shift away from the sun by up to 18 cm (7 in) due to thermal expansion of the metal on the side facing the sun.

 

Wind Considerations

 

When it was built, many were shocked by the tower's daring form. Eiffel was accused of trying to create something artistic with no regard to the principles of engineering. However, Eiffel and his team – experienced bridge builders – understood the importance of wind forces, and knew that if they were going to build the tallest structure in the world, they had to be sure it could withstand them. In an interview with the newspaper Le Temps published on the 14th. February 1887, Eiffel said:

 

"Is it not true that the very conditions which give

strength also conform to the hidden rules of

harmony?

Now to what phenomenon did I have to give

primary concern in designing the Tower? It was

wind resistance.

Well then! I hold that the curvature of the monument's

four outer edges, which is as mathematical calculation

dictated it should be, will give a great impression of

strength and beauty, for it will reveal to the eyes of the

observer the boldness of the design as a whole".

 

Eiffel used graphical methods to determine the strength of the tower, and empirical evidence to account for the effects of wind, rather than a mathematical formula. All parts of the tower were over-designed to ensure maximum resistance to wind forces. The top half was even assumed to have no gaps in the latticework.

 

In the years since it was completed, engineers have put forward various mathematical hypotheses in an attempt to explain the success of the design. The most recent, devised in 2004 after letters sent by Eiffel to the French Society of Civil Engineers in 1885 were translated into English, is described as a non-linear integral equation based on counteracting the wind pressure on any point of the tower with the tension between the construction elements at that point.

 

The Eiffel Tower sways by up to 9 cm in the wind.

 

Facilities Within The Eiffel Tower

 

When originally built, the first level contained three restaurants – one French, one Russian and one Flemish — and an "Anglo-American Bar".

 

After the exposition closed, the Flemish restaurant was converted to a 250-seat theatre. A promenade 2.6-metres wide ran around the outside of the first level.

 

At the top, there were laboratories for various experiments, and a small apartment reserved for Gustave Eiffel to entertain guests, which is now open to the public, complete with period decorations and lifelike mannequins of Eiffel and some of his notable guests.

 

In May 2016, an apartment was created on the first level to accommodate four competition winners during the UEFA Euro 2016 football tournament in Paris in June. The apartment has a kitchen, two bedrooms, a lounge, and views of Paris landmarks including the Seine, the Sacre Coeur, and the Arc de Triomphe.

 

Engraved Names on The Tower

 

Gustave Eiffel engraved on the tower the names of 72 French scientists, engineers and mathematicians in recognition of their contributions to the building of the tower. Eiffel chose this "invocation of science" because of his concern over the artists' protest. At the beginning of the 20th. century, the engravings were painted over, but they were restored in 1986–87.

 

Aesthetics of The Tower

 

The tower is painted in three shades: lighter at the top, getting progressively darker towards the bottom to complement the Parisian sky. It was originally reddish brown; this changed in 1968 to a bronze colour known as "Eiffel Tower Brown".

 

The only non-structural elements are the four decorative grill-work arches, added in Sauvestre's sketches, which served to make the tower look more substantial and to make a more impressive entrance to the exposition.

 

A movie cliché is that the view from a Parisian window always includes the tower. In reality, since zoning restrictions limit the height of most buildings in Paris to seven storeys, only a small number of tall buildings have a clear view of the tower.

 

Maintenance of The Tower

 

Maintenance of the tower includes applying 60 tons of paint every seven years to prevent it from rusting. The tower has been completely repainted at least 19 times since it was built. Lead paint was still being used as recently as 2001 when the practice was stopped out of concern for the environment.

 

Popularity of The Tower

 

More than 250 million people have visited the tower since it was completed in 1889. The tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world. An average of 25,000 people ascend the tower every day which can result in long queues.

 

Restaurants in The Tower

 

The tower has two restaurants: Le 58 Tour Eiffel on the first level, and Le Jules Verne, a gourmet restaurant with its own lift on the second level. Additionally, there is a champagne bar at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

 

From 1937 until 1981, there was a restaurant near the top of the tower. It was removed due to structural considerations; engineers had determined it was too heavy, and was causing the tower to sag. This restaurant was sold to an American restaurateur and transported to New Orleans. It was rebuilt on the edge of New Orleans' Garden District as a restaurant and later an event hall.

 

Replicas of The Eiffel Tower

 

As one of the most iconic landmarks in the world, the Eiffel Tower has been the inspiration for the creation of many replicas and similar towers.

 

An early example is Blackpool Tower in England. The mayor of Blackpool, Sir John Bickerstaffe, was so impressed on seeing the Eiffel Tower at the 1889 exposition that he commissioned a similar tower to be built in his town. It opened in 1894, and is 158.1 m tall. Tokyo Tower in Japan, built as a communications tower in 1958, was also inspired by the Eiffel Tower.

 

There are various scale models of the tower in the United States, including a half-scale version at the Paris Las Vegas, Nevada. There is also a copy in Paris, Texas built in 1993, and two 1:3 scale models at Kings Island, located in Mason, Ohio, and Kings Dominion, Virginia, amusement parks opened in 1972 and 1975 respectively.

 

There is a 1:3 scale model in China, and one in Durango, Mexico that was donated by the local French community. There are also several across Europe.

 

In 2011, the TV show Pricing the Priceless on the National Geographic Channel speculated that a full-size replica of the tower would cost approximately US$480 million to build. This would be more than ten times the cost of the original.

 

Communications

 

The tower has been used for making radio transmissions since the beginning of the 20th. century. Until the 1950's, sets of aerial wires ran from the cupola to anchors on the Avenue de Suffren and Champ de Mars. These were connected to longwave transmitters in small bunkers.

 

In 1909, a permanent underground radio centre was built near the south pillar, which still exists today.

 

On the 20th. November 1913, the Paris Observatory, using the Eiffel Tower as an aerial, exchanged wireless signals with the United States Naval Observatory, which used an aerial in Arlington, Virginia. The object of the transmissions was to measure the difference in longitude between Paris and Washington, D.C. Today, radio and digital television signals are transmitted from the Eiffel Tower.

 

A television antenna was first installed on the tower in 1957, increasing its height by 18.7 m. Work carried out in 2000 added a further 5.3 m, giving the current height of 324 m.

 

Legal Issues Associated With The Tower

 

The tower and its image have been in the public domain since 1993, 70 years after Eiffel's death.

 

In June 1990 a French court ruled that a special lighting display on the tower in 1989 to mark the tower's 100th. anniversary was an "original visual creation" protected by copyright. The Société d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE) now considers any illumination of the tower to be a separate work of art that falls under copyright. As a result, the SNTE alleges that it is illegal to publish contemporary photographs of the lit tower at night without permission in France and some other countries for commercial use. For this reason, it is rare to find images or videos of the lit tower at night on stock image sites, and media outlets rarely broadcast images or videos of it.

 

The imposition of copyright has been controversial. The Director of Documentation for what was then called the Société Nouvelle d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SNTE), Stéphane Dieu, commented in 2005:

 

"It is really just a way to manage commercial

use of the image, so that it isn't used in ways

of which we don't approve".

 

SNTE made over €1 million from copyright fees in 2002.

 

The copyright claim itself has never been tested in courts to date, and there has never been an attempt to track down millions of netizens who have posted and shared their images of the illuminated tower on the Internet worldwide. However, the potential for litigation exists for the commercial use of such images, for example in a magazine, on a film poster, or on product packaging.

 

French law allows pictures incorporating a copyrighted work as long as their presence is incidental or accessory to the subject being represented. Therefore, SETE may be unable to claim copyright on photographs of Paris which happen to include the lit tower.

 

Heinrich Petersen-Angeln

 

So what else happened on the day that Phil posted the card?

 

Well, the 23rd. April 1906 was not a good day for Heinrich Petersen-Angeln, because he died in Angeln, Düsseldorf on that day at the age of 56.

 

Heinrich, who was born in Westerholz on the 4th. April 1850, was a German painter, primarily of marine subjects. He was a pupil of Eugen Dücker.

A small garden area adjoining a small apartment complex in Winkle Street.

ANSH 133 (15) behind bars

  

big

  

when i was a kid, my parents took my brother and i out to Detroit several times, where my father grew up, to visit with family.

 

i remember staying at my Uncle Henrys house and seeing fireflies for the first time. my brother and I being taken fishing at the lake by Henry. i only recall bits and pieces, but they wonderful trips, due in large part to how wonderful Henry, his wife and sons were.

 

I knew that Henry had grown up with my father in the same house but i didn't fully understand the reasons why until i was an adult.

 

Henry grew up in a small town in Poland with his father, mother, and brother, as well as a large extended family. once a week, his father would send young Henry on a walk down to the post office with a letter for his sister who lived in the U.S.

 

Shortly after the Nazi invasion in 1942, his father and brother attempted to flee to a non-German occupied part of Poland, but never made it. they were exterminated.

 

Henry and his mother moved into a small apartment with his grandparents and several aunts and uncles. the living conditions, though, were horrible. emaciated, lice ridden and many contracted Typhoid. the fear palpable as the Nazi soldiers roamed the streets killing people or torturing them indiscriminately.

 

Henry recalled: "But the soldiers would come at least once a week and they started increasingly to kill people sometimes at the flimsiest excuse, like if you were running or if they started beating you and they would just do it until they killed you."

 

soon, Henry's mother was taken to Treblinka Extermination Camp and was killed there upon arrival.

 

Henry was sent to the first of several concentration and extermination camps, for forced labor, ending up, eventually at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

 

During his time at the camps, and on the Death Marches he was forced to participate in, he witnessed unimaginable atrocities, the extermination of thousands of other Jews as well as being nearly beaten to death several times himself.

 

a few years later, the war ended and Henry was one of those liberated at Auschwitz.

 

he needed to be "sponsored" in order to leave Germany and come to the United States, meaning a family member had to be willing to take him in.

 

He had no family left in Poland, none had survived. but he remembered his many walks down to the post office, carrying the letter from his dad to be sent to Michigan. without realizing it at the time, he had memorized his aunts address. Henry arrived in Detroit shortly after.

 

finally Henry was allowed to leave Germany and moved into my dad's family's home. He was in his late teens when he arrived and my dad, younger by several years, had a new big "brother". Henry lived there for the next several years as he went to college and then medical school. today, Henry is one of the nation's leading Psychoanalysts and has spent his life helping other Holocaust survivors.

 

* the polaroid photo is of the entrance to Auschwitz Concentration and Extermination Camp, Nazi Germany's largest one .

________________

 

title taken from the lyrics to one of the weekly songs in Musically Challenged.

 

"Damage," by Tim Brantley

I think this area belongs to a small apartment that is connected to the row of businesses.

 

Camera: Seagull DF-300 (Minolta X-300 copy)

Lens: Seagull-610 MC 50mm, f/1.8

Film: Fuji Film Neopan Acros 100 black and white 35mm

Shooting Program: Manual

Aperture: F/7.1

Shutter Speed: 1/60 of a sec.

Date: October 16th, 2016, 4.48 p.m.

Location: Norris City, Illinois, U.S.A.

 

Developing chemicals:

Caffenol CM-RS: 11 mins.

Water Rinse: 1 min.

Ilford Ilfostop Stopbath: 1 min.

Water Rinse: 1 min.

Ilford Hypam Fixer: 8 mins.

Water Rinse: 5 mins.

Kodak PhotoFlo 200: 1 min.

 

Seagull Fuji 35df

Belgian postcard by N.V. Victoria, Brussels, no. 639 / 21. Photo: Paramount.

 

American actress Gail Russell (1924-1961) was an incredible doe-eyed beauty who presented a screen image of great innocence and vulnerability. She is best known for the supernatural horror film The Uninvited (1944). During a promising career at Paramount, she became a victim of alcoholism. It ruined her career, appearance and marriage to Guy Madison. In 1961, she died from liver damage, only 36.

 

Gail Russell was born born Elizabeth L. Russell in 1924 to George and Gladys (Barnet) Russell in Chicago, Illinois. The family moved to the Los Angeles, California, area when she was a teenager. Her father was initially a musician but later worked for Lockheed Corporation. Russell attended high school in Santa Monica, California, where she was spotted by a Paramount talent scout and signed to a contract immediately upon graduation. Although Russell was possessed with a paralyzing kind of self-consciousness and had no acting experience, Paramount had great expectations for her and employed an acting coach to work with her. At the age of 19 she made her film debut with a small part in the comedy Henry Aldrich Gets Glamour (Hugh Bennett, 1943). She also had a small part in the musical Lady in the Dark (Mitchell Leisen, 1943) with Ginger Rogers. Russell's haunting, melancholy beauty was ideally suited for the ingénue role in the lavish supernatural horror film The Uninvited (Lewis Allen, 1944) with Ray Milland. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "The Uninvited remains one of the spookiest "old dark house" films ever made, even after years of inundation by computer-generated special effects." Lewis Allen then directed Russell in Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (Lewis Allen, 1944), in which she co-starred with Diana Lynn. It was another success. Russell co-starred opposite Alan Ladd in Salty O'Rourke (Raoul Walsh, 1945), a horse racing drama. She made a third film with Allen, The Unseen (Lewis Allen, 1945), an unofficial follow up to The Uninvited. Gail played Elizabeth Howard, a governess of the house in question. The film turned a profit but was not the hit that Paramount executives hoped for. Then she and Lynn were in Our Hearts Were Growing Up (William D. Russell, 1946), a sequel to Our Hearts Were Young and Gay. The plot centered around two young college girls getting involved with bootleggers. Unfortunately, it was not anywhere the caliber of the first film and it failed at the box-office. She was reunited with Ladd in Calcutta (John Farrow, 1947), shot in 1945 but not released until two years later. Although the film was popular, critics felt that Russell was miscast.

 

Gail Russell left Paramount and appeared in the romantic comedy The Bachelor's Daughters (Andrew L. Stone, 1948) for United Artists. John Wayne hired her to be his co-star in a film he was producing, Angel and the Badman (James Edward Grant, 1948). It was a hit with the public and Gail shone in the role of Penelope Worth, a feisty Quaker girl who tries to tame gunfighter Wayne. She did Moonrise (Frank Borzage, 1948) for Republic. Bruce Eder at AllMovie: "Moonrise, the most expensive movie ever made by Republic up to that time, but one that was worth every penny. Arguably Borzage's finest directorial effort and the most hauntingly beautiful movie ever issued by the studio, Moonrise is filled with delights at just about every level that it is possible to enjoy in a movie." Russell returned to Paramount for Night Has a Thousand Eyes (John Farrow, 1948) with Edward G. Robinson, then reteamed with Wayne for Wake of the Red Witch (Edward Ludwig, 1948). She appeared in a Western with John Wayne for Pine-Thomas Productions, El Paso (Lewis R. Foster, 1949). Russell did Song of India (Albert S. Rogell, 1949) with Sabu for Columbia and The Great Dan Patch (1949) for United Artists. She made some more Pine-Thomas films: Captain China (Lewis R. Foster, 1950) with Payne, and the Film Noir The Lawless (Joseph Losey, 1951) with Macdonald Carey. She married film star Guy Madison in 1949, but by 1950 it was well known that she had become a victim of alcoholism, and Paramount did not renew her contract. She had started drinking on the set of The Uninvited to ease her paralyzing stage fright and lack of confidence. She made Air Cadet (Joseph Pevney, 1951) for Universal, but alcohol made a shambles of her career, appearance and personal life. In January 1954, in a court in Santa Monica, California, Russell pleaded guilty to a charge of drunkenness, receiving a $150 fine. The fine was in lieu of a jail sentence, with the provision that she not use intoxicants or attend night spots for two years. In the same court session, she received a continuance on a charge of driving while drunk.

 

Gail Russell disappeared from the screen for the next five years while she attempted to get control of her life. In 1954, she divorced Guy Madison. She returned to work in a co-starring role with Randolph Scott in the Western Seven Men from Now (Budd Boetticher, 1956), produced by her friend Wayne, and had a substantial role in the Film Noir The Tattered Dress (Jack Arnold, 1957) with Jeanne Crain and Jeff Chandler. In July 1957, she was photographed by a Los Angeles Times photographer after she drove her convertible into the front of Jan's Coffee Shop at 8424 Beverly Boulevard. After failing a sobriety test, Russell was arrested and charged with driving under the influence. She appeared in the B-film No Place to Land (Albert C. Gannaway, 1958) for Republic. By now the demons of alcohol had her in its grasp. She was again absent from the screen until The Silent Call (John A. Bushelman, 1961), a respectable family film about a big dog by the name of Pete with definite separation anxiety. It was to be her last film. On 26 August 1961, Russell was found dead in her small apartment in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California. She was only 36. She died from liver damage attributed to "acute and chronic alcoholism" with stomach contents aspiration as an additional cause. She was also found to have been suffering from malnutrition at the time of her death. She was buried in Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood.

 

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Denny Jackson (IMDb), Jim Beaver (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Spanish postcard by Falgra, Barcelona, no. 1136. Photo: United Artists. Publicity still for Summer Storm (Douglas Sirk, 1944).

 

American film actress Linda Darnell (1923-1965) progressed from modeling as a child to acting in theatre and film as an adolescent. The ravishing beauty appeared in supporting roles in big-budget films for 20th Century Fox throughout the 1940s, and rose to fame with co-starring roles opposite Tyrone Power in adventure films. She established a main character career after her role in Forever Amber (1947), and won critical acclaim for her work in Unfaithfully Yours (1948) and A Letter to Three Wives (1949).

 

Monetta Eloyse Darnell was born in Dallas, Texas, in 1923, as one of four children to postal clerk Calvin Roy Darnell and the former Pearl Brown. She was the younger sister of Undeen and the older sister of Monte Maloya and Calvin Roy, Jr. Her parents were not happily married, and she grew up as a shy and reserved girl in a house of domestic turmoil. Starting at an early age, her mother Pearl had big plans for Darnell in the entertainment industry. She believed that Linda was her only child with potential as an actress and ignored the rearing of her other children. Darnell was a model by the age of 11 and was acting on the stage by the age of 13. She initially started modeling to earn money for the household, and performed mostly in beauty contests. Darnell was a student at Sunset High School, when in November 1937, a talent scout for 20th Century Fox arrived in Dallas, looking for new faces. Encouraged by her mother, Darnell met him, and after a few months, he invited her for a screen test in Hollywood. In California, Darnell was initially rejected by film studios and was sent home because she was declared "too young". Darnell was featured in a ‘Gateway to Hollywood’ talent-search and landed a contract at RKO Pictures. There was no certainty, though, and she soon returned to Dallas. When 20th Century Fox offered her a part, Darnell wanted to accept, but RKO was unwilling to release her. Nevertheless, by age 15, she was signed to a contract at 20th Century Fox and moved to a small apartment in Hollywood all alone in 1939.Her first film was Hotel for Women (Gregory Ratoff, 1939), which had newspapers immediately hailing her as the newest star of Hollywood. Loretta Young was originally assigned to play the role, but demanded a salary which the studio would not give her. Darryl F. Zanuck instead cast Darnell, advertise her beauty and suggested a Latin quality. Although only 15 at the time, Darnell posed as a 17-year-old and was listed as 19 years old by the studio. Her true age came out later in 1939, and she became one of the few actresses under the age of 16 to serve as leading ladies in films.

 

Linda Darnell was assigned to the female lead opposite Tyrone Power in the light romantic comedy Day-Time Wife (Gregory Ratoff, 1939). Although the film received only slightly favourable reviews, Darnell's performance was received positively for her breath-taking looks and splendid acting. Life magazine stated that Darnell was "the most physically perfect girl in Hollywood". Following the film's release, she was cast in the drama comedy Star Dust (Walter Lang, 1940) with John Payne. The film was hailed as one of the "most original entertainment idea in years" and boosted Darnell's popularity, being nicknamed 'Hollywood's loveliest and most exciting star'. After appearing in several small films, Darnell was cast in her first big-budget film opposite Tyrone Power in Brigham Young (Henry Hathaway, 1940), regarded as the most expensive film 20th Century Fox had yet produced. Darnell and Power were cast together for the second time due to the box office success of Day-Time Wife, and they became a highly publicized onscreen couple, which prompted Darryl F. Zanuck to add 18 more romantic scenes to Brigham Young. Darnell began working on the big-budget adventure The Mark of Zorro (Rouben Mamoulian, 1940), in which she again co-starred as Power's sweetheart. Critics raved over the film. The Mark of Zorro was a box office sensation and did much to enhance Darnell's star status. Afterwards, she was paired with Henry Fonda for the first time in the western Chad Hanna (Henry King, 1940), her first Technicolor film. The film received only little attention, unlike Darnell's next film Blood and Sand (Rouben Mamoulian, 1941), in which she was reteamed with Power. It was the first film for which she was widely critically acclaimed. Thereafter the studio was unable to find her suitable roles. Darnell was disappointed and felt rejected. Months passed by without any work, and in August 1941, she was cast in a supporting role in the musical Rise and Shine (Allan Dwan, 1941). The film was a setback in her career, and she was rejected for a later role because she refused to respond to Darryl F. Zanuck's advances. Instead, she contributed to the war effort, working for the Red Cross, selling war bonds, and she was a regular at the Hollywood Canteen.

 

Linda Darnell and Twentieth Century-Fox weren't on the best of terms, and as a punishment, she was loaned out to Columbia for a supporting role in a B movie called City Without Men (Sidney Salkow, 1942). In 1943, she was put on suspension. Darnell had married, which caused the fury of Zanuck. Darnell was reduced to second leads and was overlooked for big-budget productions. Matters changed in 1944 when Look Magazine named her one of the four most beautiful women in Hollywood, along with Hedy Lamarr, Ingrid Bergman, and Gene Tierney. The studio allowed her to be loaned out for the lead in Summer Storm (Douglas Sirk, 1944), opposite George Sanders. She played a type of role she had never before: a seductive peasant girl who takes three men to their ruin before she herself is murdered. The film provided her a new screen image as a pin-up girl. Shortly after, Darnell was again loaned out to portray a showgirl in The Great John L. (Frank Tuttle, 1945), the first film to feature her bare legs. Darnell complained that the studio lacked recognition of her, which prodded Zanuck to cast her in the Film Noir Hangover Square (John Brahm, 1945), playing a role she personally had chosen. The film became a great success, and she was added to the cast of another Film Noir, Fallen Angel (Otto Preminger, 1945), which also included Dana Andrews and Alice Faye. Despite suffering from the "terrifying" Preminger, Darnell was praised by reviewers so widely that there was even talk of an Oscar nomination. In 1946, Darnell filmed two pictures simultaneously, the expensively budgeted Anna and the King of Siam (John Cromwell, 1946) with Irene Dunne, and Centennial Summer (Otto Preminger, 1946) with the legendary Lillian Gish. Then she went on location in Monument Valley for the classic Western My Darling Clementine (John Ford, 1946) with Henry Fonda end Victor Mature. It was another hit and garnered Linda some of the best reviews of her career.

 

In 1946, Linda Darnell won the starring role in the highly anticipated romantic drama Forever Amber (Otto Preminger, 1947), based on a bestselling historical novel that was denounced as being immoral at that time. Although she had to work with Preminger, she was delighted to play the title role. However, Forever Amber did not live up to its hype, and although it became a success at the box office, most reviewers agreed that the film was a disappointment. The following year, Darnell portrayed Daphne de Carter in the comedy Unfaithfully Yours (Preston Sturges, 1948), also starring Rex Harrison, and was then one of the three wives in the comedy/drama A Letter to Three Wives (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1949). Darnell's hard-edged performance in the latter won her unanimous acclaim and the best reviews of her career. Darnell became one of the most-demanded actresses in Hollywood, and she now had the freedom to select her own roles. She was cast opposite Richard Widmark and Veronica Lake in Slattery's Hurricane (Andre DeToth, 1949), which she perceived as a step down from the level she had reached with A Letter to Three Wives, though it did well at the box office. She then co-starred opposite Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier in the groundbreaking No Way Out (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950). But her later films were rarely noteworthy, and her appearances were increasingly sporadic. Further hampering Darnell's career was the actress's alcoholism and weight gain. Her next films included the Western, Two Flags West (Robert Wise, 1950), The 13th Letter (Otto Preminger, 1951) and The Guy Who Came Back (Joseph M. Newman, 1951).

 

In 1951, Darnell signed a new contract with 20th Century Fox that allowed her to become a freelance actress. Her first film outside 20th Century Fox was for Universal Pictures, The Lady Pays Off (Douglas Sirk, 1951). She was responsible for putting the film behind schedule, because on the fifth day of shooting, she learned that Ivan Kahn, the man responsible for her breakthrough, had died. Darnell then headed the cast of the British romantic war film Saturday Island (Stuart Heisler, 1952), which co-starred Tab Hunter and was filmed on location in Jamaica. There, Darnell fell ill and had to be quarantined for several weeks. Because her contract required her to make one film a year for the studio, she reported to the lot of 20th Century Fox for the Film Noir Night Without Sleep (Roy Ward Baker, 1952) with Gary Merrill and Hildegarde Knef. It was the only time that she had to live up to this part of her contract, since she was released from it in September 1952. The competition of television forced studios all over Hollywood to drop actors. This news initially excited Darnell, because it permitted her to focus on her film career in Europe, but the ease and protection enjoyed under contract was gone. Before traveling to Italy for a two-picture deal with Giuseppe Amato, Darnell was rushed into the production of Blackbeard the Pirate (Raoul Walsh, 1952). In Italy she made Donne proibite/Angels of Darkness (Giuseppe Amato, 1954) with Valentina Cortese and Giulietta Masina. The second collaboration, the French-Italian comedy Gli ultimi cinque minuti/The Last Five Minutes (Giuseppe Amato, 1955) with Vittorio De Sica and Peppino De Filippo proved disastrous, and was never released in the United States. Back in Hollywood, she accepted an offer from Howard Hughes to star in RKO's 3-D film Second Chance (Rudolph Maté, 1953) with Robert Mitchum, filmed in Mexico. Because of her then-husband, Philip Liebmann, Darnell put her career on a hiatus. In 1955, she returned to 20th Century Fox, by which time the studio had entered the television field. She guest-starred in series like Cimarron City and Wagon Train, and also returned to the stage.

 

Linda Darnell’s last work as an actress was in a stage production in Atlanta in early 1965. At the time of her death a few months later, she was preparing to perform in another play. She died in 1965, from burns she received in a house fire in Glenview, a suburb of Chicago. The house of her former secretary and agent caught on fire in the early morning and Darnell died that afternoon in Cook County Hospital. Linda Darnell was only 41. She had been married three times. In 1943, at age 19, she eloped with 42-year-old cameraman Peverell Marley in Las Vegas. Marley was a heavy drinker and introduced Darnell to alcohol, which eventually led to an addiction and weight problems. In 1946, during production of Centennial Summer, she fell in love with womanizing millionaire Howard Hughes. She separated from Marley but when Hughes announced that he had no desire to marry her, Darnell returned to her husband. Because Darnell and Marley were unable to have children, they adopted a daughter, Charlotte Mildred "Lola" Marley (1948), the actress's only child. In mid-1948, she became romantically involved with director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and filed for divorce. Mankiewicz, however, did not want to leave his wife for Darnell, and though the affair continued for six years, she again returned to her husband. In 1949, Darnell went into psychotherapy for hostile emotions that she had been building since childhood. Darnell and Marley finally divorced in 1951. In 1954, she married brewery heir Philip Liebmann but the marriage ended in 1955 on grounds of incompatibility. From 1957 to 1963, Linda Darnell was married to pilot Merle Roy Robertson. Darnell's final screen appearance was opposite Rory Calhoun in the low-budget Western Black Spurs (R.G. Springsteen, 1965).

 

Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Maya at my window where she sits and barks at people (especially kids) when she thinks I'm not looking. She knows she's not supposed to bark at anyone outside my window so she does it on the sly...........She thinks she owns the street below as well! If only she knew her owner just owned a small apartment in a block of flats!

 

As for Baby, he has no interest whatsoever in what goes on outside our window!

The Daily Press - Modular Newspaper Print Shop.

Alternate build (b model) for the LEGO 10278 Police Station.

 

Building instructions available rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-93582

 

I used 2735 of the 2903 parts of the LEGO Police Station.

The ground floor of the main building contains a press room with an old newspaper printing press, in the first floor there is the editorial office and on the second floor lives the owner in a small apartment with roof terrace.

In the smaller neighboring building there is a flower shop on both floors (with room for growing and caring the plants upstairs).

 

Farellones (2,500 m high) has been, since the beginning of snow sports, a place of fun for the people of Santiago – it is thus one of the oldest ski centers in America.

 

Small and picturesque, it is a village almost exclusively of houses and small apartment buildings of residents of the capital, who use the region a lot for their weekends – it is only 40 km from the city center to the resort!

 

The slopes of Farellones are great: in fact, the available area of the 4 neighboring stations (La Parva, El Colorado, Farellones, and Valle Nevado) exceeds 120 km of slopes, and they are easily accessed with available ski lifts and integrated skipass.

Small apartment building. Behind the grilles are an array of solid and trans plate that will create some nice lighting once I get around to lighting up my micropolis builds.

Tag - 20 things about me. Tagged by Slash_spread

 

1. I avoid taking pictures of myself. So here, have old picture instead.

2. My hair is no longer that long.

3. I'm originally from a South America country.

4. But I love Canada, and more specifically, its capital Ottawa.

5. I think I just love quiet cities. Traffic and dirt make me ill.

6. I like food in general, except cucumbers and pineapple and too spicy.

7. I also like drawing.

8. I'd love to have time to animate my own ideas, too.

9. I've created my three most beloved characters around 12 years ago.

10. I'm a very judgamental person and I trust my intuition a lot.

11. I DISLIKE mainstream. Most people should know that already. I'm a closet hipster except for the wardrobe.

12. I love my family. It's a pity it's spread all around the world =/

14. Because we hate dictators disguised as democrats.

15. I also love cats, but I'm allowing myself to only owning one.

16. As I live in a very small apartment.

17. But I'm saving to own my own house.

18. I like old school videogames. My favorite all time console is Sega Genesis 16bits.

19. I don't play much videogames but I love the Final Fantasy saga, specially the ones most people dislike.

20. I'm currently working as a layout painter artist for local animation studios.

My wife and I are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for moving week. It wasn't a long move (only 5 km), but with a baby on the way, it was time to buy a house and leave our small apartment behind. All that to say, this is my first bit of free time in the last while, as well as the internet was only hooked up yesterday, so I'm back! I digress though, this is the final set from our successful day on the B&R back on November 23rd. Tim, Chris, and I had a quick bite by the station and figured we'd grab one last take in good light of RDHJ. I had just finished scarfing down my sub from a local store in town, when the EMD"s could be heard quickly approaching. A quick swipe on my pants to "clean" my hands off and I banged off this shot of the train approaching Hoosick Junction, and just a few hundred feet away from crossing into New York state. After the crew had made their setoff in North Bennington, the former Incobrasa Industries hopper was on the headpin, and looked smart next to the red and blue of the motive power.

Watamu - Villaggio turistico - Il nostro piccolo appartamento.

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Watamu - Tourist village - Our small apartment.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venice

 

Venice (Italian: Venezia; Venetian: Venesia, Venexia) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region.

 

It is situated across a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The islands are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave rivers (more exactly between the Brenta and the Sile). Parts of Venice are renowned for the beauty of their settings, their architecture, and artwork. The lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

In 2018, 260,897 people resided in Comune di Venezia, of whom around 55,000 live in the historical city of Venice (Centro storico). Together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), with a total population of 2.6 million. PATREVE is only a statistical metropolitan area.

 

The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC. The city was historically the capital of the Republic of Venice. Venice has been known as the "La Dominante", "Serenissima", "Queen of the Adriatic", "City of Water", "City of Masks", "City of Bridges", "The Floating City", and "City of Canals."

 

The 697-1797 Republic of Venice was a major financial and maritime power during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and a staging area for the Crusades and the Battle of Lepanto, as well as a very important center of commerce (especially silk, grain, and spice) and art in the 13th century up to the end of the 17th century. The city-state of Venice is considered to have been the first real international financial center which gradually emerged from the 9th century to its peak in the 14th century. This made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history.

 

It is also known for its several important artistic movements, especially the Renaissance period. After the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna, the Republic was annexed by the Austrian Empire, until it became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1866, following a referendum held as a result of the Third Italian War of Independence. Venice has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, and it is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi. Although the city is facing some major challenges (including financial difficulties, pollution, an excessive number of tourists and problems caused by cruise ships sailing close to the buildings), Venice remains a very popular tourist destination and an iconic Italian city, and has been ranked the most beautiful city in the world.

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fondazione_Musei_Civici_di_Venezia

 

Founded following the resolution passed by the Municipal Council Board of Venice on March 3rd 2008, the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia (MUVE) manages and develops the cultural and artistic heritage of Venice and islands. Formed as a participatory foundation, it has only one founding member, the City of Venice.

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piazza_San_Marco

 

Piazza San Marco (Venetian: Piasa San Marco), often known in English as St Mark's Square, is the principal public square of Venice, Italy, where it is generally known just as la Piazza ("the Square"). All other urban spaces in the city (except the Piazzetta and the Piazzale Roma) are called campi ("fields"). The Piazzetta ("little Piazza/Square") is an extension of the Piazza towards the lagoon in its south east corner (see plan). The two spaces together form the social, religious and political centre of Venice and are commonly considered together. This article relates to both of them.

 

A remark usually attributed (though without proof) to Napoleon calls the Piazza San Marco "the drawing room of Europe".

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procuratie

 

The Procuratie (literally, "procuracies") are three connected buildings on St Mark's Square in Venice. They are also connected to St Mark's Clocktower. They are historic buildings over arcades, the last of them completed, to finish off the square, under Napoleon's occupation.

 

The oldest of the buildings is the Procuratie Vecchie on the north side of the Square, built as a two-storey structure in the twelfth century, to house the offices and apartments of the procurators of San Marco. They were rebuilt after a fire in the sixteenth century to a three-storey design by Codussi which still betrays something of its Gothic roots.

 

The Procuratie Nuove, on the south side of the Square was begun in 1586 by Vincenzo Scamozzi in a more strictly Classical style and completed by Longhena in 1640, designed to afford more space to offices connected with the procurators.

 

The two buildings originally had wings on the west side of the Square, separated only by a small church. In about 1810, the wings and the church were demolished and replaced by the third building, the Napoleonic Wing of the Procuraties. It was designed by Giuseppe Maria Soli in a Neoclassical manner.

 

In the neoclassical interiors so out of character in Venice, were housed the Napoleonic governor after the fall of the Venetian Republic, then the Austrian governor, then they were reserved for the use of the kings of Italy and now the President of the Italian Republic receives in them if he is in Venice. The Procuratie Vecchie and the Procuratie Nuove house old, famous and expensive coffee houses, cheek-by-jowl: Gran Caffè Quadri, Caffè Florian, which opened December 29, 1720, and Caffè Lavena, in the same premises since the mid-18th century; it was Richard Wagner's favorite. Above, many a Venetian family whose Ca might be a long gondola ride from the Piazza, kept a small apartment for entertaining called a ridotto, the scenes of paintings of fashionable life by Alessandro Longhi. The ridotti were extremely fashionable in Venice. As much care and taste went into the furnishings and stuccoed and painted decor of the ridotti as were expended on the palazzi of Venice themselves. The Republic Square (in Croatian Trg republike), called by locals Prokurative in Split, Croatia was built after Procuratie.

 

Today, the Napoleonic Wing (Procuratie Nuovissime) and part of the Procuratie Nuove house the Correr Museum.

 

In 2017, English architect Sir David Chipperfield was appointed to supervise renovation of the Procuratie Vecchie.

Storage is a big deal in a small apartment, so Charley went for a tall dresser instead of a long one to free up floor space. A magnetic board allows her to display—and easily change out—her collection of concert posters

(The dresser came as you see it, from craft store. The magnetic board is the lid to a set of stickers I had on hand. I lined the inside with scrapbook paper and stuck the posters on with magnets. It was probably the easiest thing I made for the room. Easy is nice. I sure wish it happened more often.)