![]() The revamped tower debuted at the 2000 festival and quickly resumed its position as a meeting and gathering point and photo op for fest-goers. “The students reinforced the steel and added 10,000 pounds to the base for stabilization,” the magazine noted. ![]() Twenty-five students from the school’s Engineering and Building Construction Department spent evenings and weekends for months – January through May – rehabbing it under the guidance of Assistant Professor Fritz DeVries.ĭeVries told the school magazine, Dimensions, that it was fun working out how the 50 parts of the tower fit together. So, East Town Association used the inflatable tower at the festival and called its neighbor, Milwaukee School of Engineering, for help. It debuted at the French-themed street festival in 1989, and by 1999, it was in desperate need of repairs. It was initially built as part of an admittedly ambitious indoor department store display in the late 1980s, perhaps at Dayton's in Minneapolis. The 43-foot wood and steel tower – the original is 1,083 feet tall – was never meant to be permanent, much less disassembled and reassembled and put back outside for a long weekend each year. That inflatable version, Sturkey says, will likely be back this year. In fact, in 1999, it was replaced with an inflatable version, while restoration was taking place. While the Eiffel Tower has long been among the most popular attractions at Bastille Days, this is not the first time it’s been off-view and in need of restoration. The tower in its original department store setting. And that’s in times without labor shortages and supply chain issues. ![]() Most years, East Town staffers would spend twice as long – eight months – planning Bastille Days. In addition, says Sturkey, East Town Association has, like everything else, been mostly running in place since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, which has limited its revenue. Hard planning for this year's festival is only occurring in four months’ time with mostly new people – myself and Events By Design assisting with production – in probably the most challenging environment you could possibly imagine.” “As hard as it was to come to the decision, I quickly decided there wasn't enough time or resources. “I debated for a while about how much time and resources we'd be able to devote to getting additional assessment since it's been sitting in storage since 2019 – restoration, transportation and construction,” says Eddie Sturkey, interim executive director of the East Town Association. ![]() (PHOTO: East Town Association) XĪlas, when the festival opens on Thursday, July 14, the mini Eiffel Tower will be missing as it remains in storage in a Walker’s Point basement awaiting restoration, hopefully in time for next year’s festival, during which Bastille Days will celebrate its 40th anniversary in the East Town neighborhood. The mini Eiffel Tower is a Bastille Days icon. While it took a long time for the French to fall in love with the now-iconic tower that Gustave Eiffel built for the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris, Milwaukee quickly became enamored of the miniature version that’s long been a staple of Bastille Days at Cathedral Square Park. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |