The Eiffel Tower culminates from Tuesday at 330 meters high, thanks to the placement of a new radio antenna that brings it a little closer to the stars, specifically six meters.
“I haven't stopped growing since 1889! Today we celebrate a new historic chapter: the installation of a new antenna that makes me grow from 324 meters to 330 meters!” , reads a message on the Twitter account of the monument, one of the most visited in the world.
Under the watchful eye of tourists and curious people, a helicopter raised the new antenna to the top of the “Iron Lady”, where a technician waited to fix it. The operation took a total of 15 minutes, after three hours of delay due to bad weather, AFP noted.
“It is a great pride,” Jean-François Martins, the president of the management company SETE, told the press, for whom the unprecedented helicopter operation is part of the history of the Eiffel Tower: “a place of technological and scientific experimentation”.
The monument was built by the architect Gustave Eiffel for the 1889 Universal Exhibition and it was precisely its function as a radio transmitter, initially for military purposes, that saved it from being dismantled, Martins added.
The operation, prepared “for more than a year”, cost 1 million euros (1.1 million dollars) and the new antenna, which allows the entire Paris region access to digital terrestrial radio, weighs 350 kilos, according to Arnaud Lucaussy, from broadcasting operator TDF.
The installation of the antenna is produced in full painting work of this symbol of Paris, which will regain a more golden appearance in the face of the 2024 Olympic Games in the “City of Love”.
nk-tjc/mb