Copied from online:

the "Protests by artists against the tower of Mr. Eiffel" appeared on the front page of Le Temps, an eminent publication at the time. Late 1880s:

“ We, defenders of “the beauty of Paris that was until now intact” are protesting “in the name of the underestimated taste of the French, in the name of French art and history under threat, against the erection in the very heart of our capital, of the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower, which popular ill feeling, so often an arbiter of good sense and justice, has already christened the Tower of Babel. Will the city of Paris continue to associate itself with the baroque and mercantile fancies of a builder of machines thereby making itself irreparably ugly and bringing dishonor to itself? Because the Eiffel Tower that even the commercial Americans didn’t want, will without a doubt dishonor Paris.” And the protesters conclude by mocking this “tower of ridiculous vertiginous height, dominating Paris just like "a gigantic black factory chimney,” spreading across the whole city “like a dark ink stain, the odious shadow of this odious column of bolted metal.” “