Oh come on. |
For those who can’t quite understand the significance of this event, here is a statement from travel journalist Rick Steves:
Seeing today's news about the fire at the Notre-Dame Cathedral has been heartbreaking. Imagine the faith of the people who built this great stone wonder. They broke ground in 1163 with the hope that someday their great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren might attend the dedication Mass, which finally took place two centuries later. Master masons supervised the construction, but the people did much of the grunt work themselves for free — hauling the huge stones from distant quarries, digging a 30-foot-deep trench to lay the foundation, and treading like rats on a wheel designed to lift the stones up, one by one. And then imagine being a simple bareheaded peasant, entering the dim medieval light of the church for the first time. Take a minute to let your pupils dilate, then take in the subtle, mysterious light show that God beams through the stained-glass windows. And listen as the priest intones the words of the Mass that echo through the hall: Terribilis est locus iste — "This place is awe-inspiring." |
Or sparks flying from a saw. |
I am watching the live coverage on TF1, and the aerial view shows nothing left inside, just a massive fire in the entire thing. And they did not get all the art, etc out in time.
If you want to see real coverage, go to latvdefrance.com. |
Where are the fire trucks?! Why can’t they get this under control?? |
I don’t understand why they can’t put this out. It was not that big hours ago. I don’t understand why they couldn’t stop it hours ago. |
Read the news. The core of the structure is wood (from hundreds of years ago.) It's not like this building would pass today's fire code standards. |
For insurance fraud to work, there needs to be insurance, numbnuts. |
+1 No one is going to provide fire insurance for a priceless ancient building built of wood. |
And it’s on an island. So one side of the cathedral grounds, which is a park, is on the river. |
They saved the towers and 2/3rds of the roof. |
Francois-Henri Pinault has already pledged 100 million euros to rebuilding.
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Good for him. Hope other ultra rich French citizens do too. Just don’t sell the naming rights.... ![]() |
Keep in mind it took 200 years to build. |
In an 850 year old cathedral? |