Less-Leaning Pisa Tower Reopens to the Public

After a $27-million realignment that dragged on for more than a decade, visitors are once again making the climb up Pisa’s Leaning Tower.

The tower reopened to the public Saturday, a little less off center but still confounding visitors.

“I thought it was amazing and at the same time frightening!” marveled Richard Colbourne, a New York graphic designer.

When the tower closed in 1990, officials said it would open again in just a few years. The ambitious plan to reverse some of the tilt to ensure that it wouldn’t topple--at first regarded with some skepticism--took far longer.

Engineers shaved off 17 inches from the tilt and guided the monument back to where it was in 1838. The tower now leans 13.5 feet off the perpendicular and is not expected to return to its 1990 position for three centuries.

The reopening was relatively low-key, out of deference to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The renovation included attaching a pair of steel “suspenders” to the tower, and then excavating soil under its foundations to try to realign it. The tower’s seven bronze bells were stilled for fear that their vibrations would threaten the tower’s stability.