Eiffel Tower For Sale

I've been operating a small sales concession on Cafepress for the past couple of years, and this photo is the big seller:



It's the incomparable Eiffel Tower at night. Since it was built for the Paris Exposition of 1889, no structure in Paris has exceeded its height. It is a source of inspiration, romance, and the official symbol of France and Paris, despite the fact that it was widely reviled after its construction and some sought to demolish it early after its permit for operation expired in 1909. It always helps to get beautiful light to enhance an already majestic vista.

I'm now offering this photo separately for sale as a metallic print. Please contact me directly by email if you're interested so we can discuss size and price.

Photos For Sale

I've been operating a small sales concession on Cafepress for the past couple of years, and this photo is the big seller:



It's the incomparable Eiffel Tower at night. Since it was built for the Paris Exposition of 1889, no structure in Paris has exceeded its height. It is a source of inspiration, romance, and the official symbol of France and Paris, despite the fact that it was widely reviled after its construction and some sought to demolish it early after its permit for operation expired in 1909. It always helps to get beautiful light to enhance an already majestic vista.

If you like it, or think you'd like to buy some of my other photos - either as wall art or as covers for your cellphones, check out my CafePress shop.

Make Custom Gifts at CafePress

On My Nightstand: Eiffel's Tower

The latest book to cross my nightstand is Jill Jonnes' Eiffel's Tower: and the World's Fair Where Buffalo Bill Beguiled Paris, The Artists Quarrelled, and Thomas Edison Became a Count.

As someone who has been to Paris and taken in the view from the top of the Eiffel Tower, it's an intriguing look into the personalities of those who came to see the Tower in its inaugural year and how Gustav Eiffel overcame hurdles to make his dream happen.

Jonnes looks at the artists who tried to make their mark at the Fair, competing interests including those of Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh, and many other impressionist luminaries. It also provided some interesting background on Buffalo Bill Cody and how his Native American troupe were involved in the Black Hills treaty negotiations, tying together two of my more recent vacations.

Photo of the Day

 

The Eiffel Tower in Paris at dusk in March 2007.

This post will also serve as my call for the best and brightest from around the web.

Messing With Success

Someone has decided that the current design of the Eiffel Tower was insufficient for the 120th anniversary of the opening of the tower, designed by Gustav Eiffel for the 1889 Paris Exposition.

Put simply, they're going to bolt on extensions to the Tower's highest observation deck, increasing its size. Sacre bleu!

Here's how that would look, when viewing it from the base.

Ghastly doesn't begin to describe it. Right now, the Tower has very slender and graceful lines. This looks like someone is putting an ill-fitting hat on top of it. It isn't very attractive at all. More to the point, why was it decided that such changes were needed? Past celebrations of the Tower's birthday have been marked with new and improved lighting displays. The current display includes hundreds of flashing lights that sparkle and shimmer.

The Societe d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE) has announced that Serero Architects of Paris has won a competition to redesign the structure's public viewing platform and reception areas. The winning design, which will be 276 metres above the ground, will not require permanent modification of the existing structure. It will double the capacity of the public viewing area on the tower's top floor.

The new platform will be bolted onto the tower using a web of Kevlar, an extremely strong and lightweight carbon fibre used in the construction of racing cars and body armour. The platform will use a cantilevered design similar to the way an aircraft's wings are attached to the fuselage.

The design is already causing controversy, with critics questioning the wisdom of tinkering with the famous silhouette and spending money on upgrading a tourist attraction that attracts 6.9 million visitors a year.

A spokesman for SETE explained in a statement that the plan to restructure the top of the tower was intended to increase the quality of access. Average waiting times for the tower's lifts now run at more than an hour during peak periods.

I can remember waiting more than an hour to ride up to the observation decks, and you know what - it was totally worth the time. I got to enjoy the view of the tower from many different angles.

Eiffel Tower Bomb Plot Broken Up?

That's what's being reported by Hot Air. The French version appeared at Le Monde.

A Babelfish translation of the page follows (and I've cleaned up the translation a bit):

The services of the direction of the monitoring of the territory (DST) seek to identify the authors of a collected worrying message, Thursday January 10, by the civil controllers of Portuguese aviation. It acts of a conversation intercepted at dawn on the short waves making state of terrorist threats on Paris. The protagonists of this exchange, using "vague and confusing" language according to a police source, evoked an attack against the Eiffel Tower.

Very quickly, the Portuguese authorities alerted their French counterparts which, since, try to find the transmitter. This new message "did not throw into a panic" - according to the terms of a police officer - the services of French against-espionage. But it is added to other threats emitted these last days on the Internet sites djihadists, which invite the "brothers to strike Paris".

The device safety put in the capital for several months has not been reinforced. "It was not necessary to raise the alert, since we have been in Code red for several months, the prefecture of police force indicated. It is the highest level before the scarlet alarm which is put effect when there are attacks."

Saved from islamist terrorism since the wave of attacks of 1995-1996, France seems new being taken for target. On Internet, the Islamists, using clandestine forums or not, have increased anti-French diatribes. A message, sent on January 3 in Arabic, projected "to put a term at the continuation of the ambitions of president Sarkozy in the Maghreb countries" and to cause "a collapse of the French economy at the international level".

INQUIRE PRELIMINARY January 5, an American center charged to supervise the communications of the network of Usama Bin Laden had located on Internet of the threats "against Paris and its mayor Bertrand Delanoë" in order to involve "the fall of Nicolas Sarkozy". In addition to personalities and the Eiffel tower, the evoked operations would aim popular sites "and at high economic value". As often when such threats are uttered, the authors speak about the Champs-Elysées, the Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport, or the Quarter surrounding the Defense Department.

These calls, launched for the majority on the site salafist Al-Ekhlass, by a Net surfer being expressed under the pseudonym of Murabit Muwaded, led Paris law enforcement authorities to open a preliminary investigation. The prefecture of police force and the services of the State reinforced the protection of Mr. Delanoë. These threats are taken with the serious one. The more so as they occur after the execution, December 24, by a salafist group related to Al-Qaida, of four French tourists who circulated in Mauritania.

This attack, follow-up of explicit threats against French interests in North Africa, had pushed the Ministry for Foreign Affairs to be required, for the first time since its creation thirty years ago, the cancellation of the Paris-Dakar Rally, and the capture of four Frenchmen in Mauratania. It is in this context that - according to the Barber of January 11 - French police persons in charge have just gone in several Maghreb countries in order to start again the antiterrorist co-operation.

It would appear that it was the Portugese who first spotted the ominous language and alerted the French, who carried out further investigations. However, French authorities had been getting lots of intel about plots against French targets, especially the Eiffel Tower.

It's also interesting that other media outlets haven't picked up on the story as yet.

UPDATE:
The British Daily Mail has picked up the story, and notes that French authorities had broken up a terror ring in 2005 that sought to blow up the Eiffel Tower. The report notes that security is tight at the tower.

Well, having been there this past March, I can recall the long lines to go up in the elevators. There is screening in the lobby area, and police are present in the crowds that gather, but it is still possible to cause a mass casualty attack in the vicinity simply with the large numbers present. Whether the terrorists could bring down the tower is a question that law enforcement has to deal with on a daily basis and adjust accordingly. The Daily Mail notes that security at the tower has been beefed up.

Photo of the Day

 

The Eiffel Tower in all its daylight splendor.

This post will serve as your repository for posting your best and brightest.

Photo of the Day

 

This post will serve as my call for the best and brightest articles from around the 'net today.

Photo of the Day

The Eiffel Tower at night. Since it was built for the Paris Exposition of 1889, no structure in Paris has exceeded its height. It is a source of inspiration, romance, and the official symbol of France and Paris, despite the fact that it was widely reviled after its construction and some sought to demolish it early after its permit for operation expired in 1909. Good thing that the nascent radio industry found that the tower made for a great transmission point, and the French military realized that the tower could be used to help intercept enemy communications, plus Citroen decided to use it as an advertisement.

I Have Returned

Bienvenue! Many thanks to Legalbgl for tending to the blog in my absence. As Legalbgl pointed out a few days ago, my prolonged absence was quite well deserved. I took Mrs. Lawhawk on a second honeymoon to Paris, France (our first was to Napa Valley and San Francisco). The long and short of the trip was that it was an amazing time. It was our first time to Paris and it was Mrs. Lawhawk's first trip overseas.

Among the sites visited include: The Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Invalides, Napoleon's Tomb, Place de la Concorde, Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, Conciergerie, Notre Dame, Jewish Museum, Pantheon, Musee Rodin, Musee Picasso, Sainte Chapelle, Versailles, Reims, and Epernay (Champagne country). We walked all over Paris visiting the many neighborhoods including Bastille, the Islands, Marais, St. Germain, Latin Quarter, Champs-Élysées, Montmartre, the Tulleries and Luxembourg gardens, and many others.

The food was amazing, and we'll never look at a piece of bread or pastries quite the same (they really do taste better in France). You might find that you have a favorite ice cream place stateside, but I dare you to find a better ice cream than Berthillon, which was simply exquisite. Oh, and the wines were pretty good too.

I'll be posting plenty of Paris photos in the days and weeks ahead.

Stay tuned!

The Battle for Ground Zero, Part 145

Foundation work is going ahead tomorrow. That work may include blasting away the bedrock so that the foundations can be laid. Such blasting would reduce the time to complete this portion of the excavation to two months. The alternative would be thousands of hours of men using jackhammers and heavy machinery. The contractors are planning a test blast tomorrow, and if everything checks out, additional blasting would begin within days. Expect lots of 911 calls from concerned folks who don't know that this blasting will occur.

The blasting would require the closure of some nearby streets and PATH service would be stopped while the blasting occurred.

A firefighers' memorial at Station House Number 10 across the street from Ground Zero has opened. The memorial was paid for by Holland and Knight after one of their partners, who was a volunteer firefighter, died trying to rescue people from the Twin Towers. The New York Times has an interactive feature allowing you to learn about the various details of the memorial. Meanwhile, the offical 9/11 memorial is still in limbo. What's the appropriate cost for building the memorial?

The Australian thinks that New York City needs its own Eiffel Tower. Sorry, but any tower built is going to be a target, whether it's an office building or a spire like the CN tower in Canada or the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I still think that building a Freedom Tower is the right thing to do, and the criticism about how it is far away from the transit hub is a weak one. Considering that much of the East Side of Manhattan is without a subway line, the fact that the Freedom Tower is situated at a point only a few thousand feet from the transit hub (PATH and subways), the argument does ring hollow - after all, you don't hear how construction projects on the East Side of Manhattan are going to fail because there isn't a subway within blocks of various building sites.

Also, Ground Zero workers are pressing for a meeting with President Bush to demand health care coverage for ailments related to their work.

Technorati: World Trade Center, WTC, Pataki, LMDC, urban policy, Freedom Tower, IFC, International Freedom Center, spitzer, silverstein.