When Paris Called the Eiffel Tower a Metal Asparagus and Other Reasons Why Sometimes Haters Are Just Wrong

On March 31, 1889, the Eiffel Tower officially opened to the public, though "opened" might be too generous a term for what actually transpired. Due to the elevator mechanisms still being incomplete, the only way to reach the top of Gustave Eiffel's 1,063-foot iron monstrosity was to climb 1,710 steps. This minor inconvenience did not deter Eiffel himself, who gamely led a procession of government officials up the endless staircases to plant a French flag at the summit and fire a 25-gun salute. What makes this particularly delicious is that most Parisians absolutely loathed the tower. The city's artistic and literary elite had spent the previous two years denouncing it as a "metal asparagus," a "truly tragic street lamp," and—my personal favorite—a "gigantic black smokestack" that would humiliate their beautiful city. Guy de Maupassant reportedly ate lunch in the tower's restaurant regularly because it was the one place in Paris where he didn't have to look at the tower. The structure was only supposed to stand for twenty years as the temporary entrance arch to the 1889 World's Fair, built to commemorate the centennial of the French Revolution. It was saved from demolition only because it proved useful as a radiotelegraph station. Today, of course, it's the most visited paid monument in the world, welcoming roughly seven million visitors annually—none of whom have to climb all those stairs unless they really want to. One imagines de Maupassant spinning in his grave. This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.