Gustave Eiffel
December 15, 1832-December 27, 1923 Levallois-Perret Cemetery Division 10
48° 54′ 6.03 N 2° 17′ 22.72 E
Alexandre Gustave Eiffel is best known for his eponymous steel tower in the 7th arrondissement. Eiffel was born in Dijon, France, and educated at Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, which was a vocational-oriented school. After a few employment fits and starts, he designed a 72-foot-long bridge for a railway company and then went on to design his first major project, a 1,600-foot iron girder bridge over the Garonne River in Bordeaux. The Bordeaux bridge was completed in 1861. Eiffel opened his own company in Levallois-Perret in 1866 and there was no turning back. In 1881 he designed the structure for the Statue of Liberty. Indeed, the entire structure was assembled at Eiffel’s Levallois-Perret factory before being dissembled and shipped to the United States. The 151-foot, one-inch statue was assembled on Liberty Island in New York City and dedicated on October 28, 1886. In 1884 Eiffel began working with Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier on a design for what would become the centerpiece for the 1889 Exposition Universelle. Work started at the end of January 1887, and the structural work was finished by the end of March 1888. Although the Eiffel Tower certainly had its critics, it has become one of the most recognizable structures in the world. At 986 feet (not including the antenna), it was the tallest structure in the world until being surpassed by the Chrysler Building in New York City in 1930. Look close at Gustave Eiffel’s chapelle-style mausoleum in Levallois-Perret Cemetery and you’ll notice that it is out of alignment with the other tombs in the cemetery. It is said to be angled so Gustave Eiffel can face the Eiffel Tower 3 miles away.
This 20,000-mile voyage over fifteen months was followed in 1528 by an expedition of five ships seeking a western passage through the Isthmus of Panama. Baku/Sumqayit Metro Map On an island beach somewhere off the Gulf of Darien, Giovanni da Verrazano was killed by indigenous people, who were probably hostile due to prior Spanish raids. In the 1860s, doubt was cast on Verrazano’s achievements by a number of scholars, who questioned his reports and revived a scurrilous version of his death. This controversy was overturned within a generation, particularly with the discovery and publication in 1909 of an original copy of his lost report to Francis I, which restored Verrazano’s fame. In 1964, his name was given to what was then the world’s longest suspension bridge, connecting Brooklyn and Staten Island, thus honoring his achievements. Neil Kennedy See also: Exploration; Hudson River.
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