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Like lovers who courted in youth, quarreled and separated in the middle years and finally reconciled happily, Otis and Eiffel are together now, creating a memorable experience for more than three million visitors annually. But it wasn't always like that. La Tour Eiffel opened in 1889, the centerpiece of a World's Fair marking the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. Installation of the Otis elevators was not complete on opening day, however. The principals, company President Charles Otis and Gustave Eiffel, the designer, were engaged in a long-distance war of words. Otis claimed Eiffel's repeated changes in designs and specifications caused the missed deadline, and Eiffel, for his part, threatened to withhold payment for the project, even though by this point it was a money-losing proposition for Otis. Charles Otis responded to the threat: "After all we have borne and suffered and achieved on your behalf, we regard this as a trifle too much and we will not put up with it." A controversial project from the start, the tower was scorned by prominent members of French society who feared it would resemble "a gigantic kitchen chimney dominating Paris" and would "eclipse by its barbarous mass" such well-loved monuments as the Arc de Triomphe and Notre Dame. But Gustave Eiffel's project nevertheless went forward, and concerns about aesthetics gave way to technical issues. None loomed larger than how to transport people safely and efficiently to the top of the 300-meter (985-foot) tower and points between. Although elevators were common by that time, no company had done anything quite like running them up an incline inside the tower's curved legs. What's more, the developers were adamant that only French products would be part of the Eiffel Tower. Ultimately, French elevators were installed in the higher stages of the tower and two of the other legs using a cogwheel kind of system, but no French company initially bid on the elevators that had to be installed in each of the four legs. Despite disagreements about specifications and the difficulty of doing business across the Atlantic at a time when sea borne mail was the fastest method of communication, the Otis elevators began service two months after the tower opened. Each used a cylinder in the ground that was raised by water pressure, activating a block and tackle that in turn raised a counterweighted car. Meanwhile, a French company also had installed its version in the two other legs. Those elevators used an endless chain-link arrangement to raise and lower the cars. The system proved to be more complex, louder and slower than the Otis variant. Power for all the elevators at this time came from steam systems; electricity did not replace them until about 1912. That was also the year that the Otis products ceased to serve the Eiffel Tower. One was replaced by a staircase to the first stage and the other by a small electric elevator that could function in the winter, when hydraulic systems were shut down. For decades, Otis was not associated with the tower, but when the company did return, it was in a major way. It happened in the early 1980s, by which time two key changes had occurred: The tower was in need of major renovation, including all of its elevators, and Otis was no longer viewed as a "foreign" company, having established significant operations in France and having absorbed the French elevator company whose lifts had served the tower since the beginning. The new elevators included an inclined one from the ground to the first and second stages, and two Duo-lifts going from the second floor to the top. (Duo-lifts elevators are two cabs connected by the hoist ropes and suspended over a 219 gearless machine. As one cab goes up, the other goes down.) The run covered 160 meters (524.9 feet), the longest open-air run anywhere. The elevators consisted of two cabins counter weighting one another, one going up and the other down. Two Duo-lifts were put into service, so 40 people could both ascend and descend simultaneously. Then, in 2001, Otis fulfilled the contract to modernize the Duo-lifts, a process that had to be accomplished at night, during the few hours they were not in use. The job consumed 6,000 hours and involved the transport of eight tons of components to the top of the tower.
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