Notre Dame cathedral's iconic spire fell in flames. Now it is set to rise again
PARIS -- A slender taper of latticework, its filigree etched in flame against a smoke-darkened sky. Falling.
When the world's most recognizable cathedral, Notre Dame de Paris, burned on April 15, 2019, the toppling of its spire was the catastrophe's defining moment — a dreamlike loop endlessly replayed, a stuttering stop-time interval that seemed, improbably, to last forever.
"It was so hard to believe what we were seeing," said Agnes Poirier, a journalist and author who was among the throngs watching the conflagration from the left bank of the Seine. She remembers the desolate cry that went up from the crowd at that moment.
Now the spire is slowly rising again.
The French government had hoped to reopen Notre Dame to worshipers and visitors in time for the in 2024, when Paris will be a focus of worldwide attention and tourists will crowd is now December of that year.
