9. There’s An Apartment in the Eiffel Tower

Within a year of the completion of the Eiffel Tower, it was reported by writer Henri Girard that Gustav Eiffel “the object of general envy.” But it wasn’t for his engineering and design feat, it was for an apartment he had at the third-to-highest level of the Eiffel Tower (285 meters above the ground, on the fourth level). Girard wrote that the famous apartment was “furnished in the simple style dear to scientists.

Eiffel used mostly for meeting important guests like Thomas Edison, who visited in September 1889, rather than for debaucherous parties. Here is a lovely essay on the apartment, describing how the apartment embodied many of the philosophical dreams of 19th century thinkers. Today it also contains mannequins of Eiffel and Edison.