Thank you for your contribution to the restoration of the Cathedral. The Friends of Notre-Dame is a 501c3 public charity; all gifts are tax deductible in the United States. ||||| On an average summer day in Paris, about 50,000 tourists pass through Notre Dame cathedral, one of the finest buildings of the medieval era still standing. Visitors from dozens of countries gaze up at the spectacular stained-glass windows, tiptoe through its vast choir and nave and whisper in awe at the centuries-old sculptures and paintings that line the walls. 
 
 Notre Dame, which looms over the capital from an island in the center of the city, is a constant reminder of Paris’ history. It has seen more than its share of epic dramas, including the French Revolution and two world wars. But now there is another challenge. Some 854 years after construction began, one of Europe’s most visited sites, with about 12 million tourists a year, is in dire need of repairs. Centuries of weather have worn away at the stone. The fumes from decades of gridlock have only worsened the damage. “Pollution is the biggest culprit,” says Philippe Villeneuve, architect in chief of historic monuments in France. “We need to replace the ruined stones. We need to replace the joints with traditional materials. This is going to be extensive.” 
 
 It will be expensive too, and it’s not at all clear who is prepared to foot the bill. Under France’s strict secular laws, the government owns the cathedral, and the Catholic archdiocese of Paris uses it permanently for free. The priests for years believed the government should pay for repairs, since it owned the building. But under the terms of the government’s agreement, the archdiocese is responsible for Notre Dame’s upkeep, with the Ministry of Culture giving it about €2 million ($2.28 million) a year for that purpose. Staff say that money covers only basic repairs, far short of what is needed. Without a serious injection of cash, some believe, the building will not be safe for visitors in the future. Now the archdiocese is seeking help to save Notre Dame from yielding to the ravages of time. 
 
 Many of Notre Dame's gargoyles, which act as rain spouts, have corroded and been replaced with PVC tubes, July 2017. Vincent Fournier for TIME 
 
 The architects of Notre Dame knew all too well about lengthy building work; it took more than a century to build the cathedral, beginning in 1163. It was periodically vandalized over the turbulent centuries that followed. Rioting Huguenots damaged parts of the building they believed to be idolatrous in the mid–16th century. During the French Revolution, mobs of people carted off or smashed some of its paintings and statues. The hated royalty suffered the brunt of the carnage, with crowds destroying 28 statues of monarchs from the building’s Gallery of Kings. After that, Notre Dame languished in neglect. 
 
 Then in 1831 came Victor Hugo’s book The Hunchback of Notre Dame, whose hero was the disfigured bell ringer Quasimodo. In it, France’s beloved writer raised alarm about the building’s decay, describing “mutilations, amputations, dislocations of the joints.” “Beside each wrinkle on the face of this old queen of our cathedrals,” he wrote, “you will find a scar.” 
 
 But for Notre Dame, Hugo’s book sparked fresh problems. The best seller inspired a restoration in 1844, which used low-quality stone and even cement, since France at the time could not produce the quantities of high-grade material that the job required. 
 
 Stonework has fallen from Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. Low-quality stone and cement were used in a restoration in 1844. Nearly 200 years on, that 19th century work is crumbling (though some of the painstaking medieval construction is in better shape). Vincent Fournier for TIME 
 
 Nearly 200 years on, that 19th century work is crumbling (though the medieval construction is mostly in better shape). One blazing hot day in early July, a staff member unlocked an old door off the choir and led TIME up a stone spiral staircase and out onto the roof, high above the crowds. Here, the site seemed not spiritually uplifting but distressing. Chunks of limestone lay on the ground, having fallen from the upper part of the chevet, or the eastern end of the Gothic church. One small piece had a clean slice down one side, showing how recently it had fallen. Two sections of a wall were missing, propped up with wood. And the features of Notre Dame’s famous gargoyles looked as worn away as the face of Voldemort. “They are like ice cream in the sun, melting,” says Michel Picaud, head of the nonprofit Friends of Notre Dame de Paris, looking up at them. 
 
 What is more, some fear the problem is getting worse. “The damage can only accelerate,” says Andrew Tallon, an associate professor of art at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and an expert on Gothic architecture. Having carefully studied the damage, he says the restoration work is urgent. If the cathedral is left alone, its structural integrity could be at risk. “The flying buttresses, if they are not in place, the choir could come down,” he says. “The more you wait, the more you need to take down and replace.” 
 
 The church was not fully aware of the extent of the problem, say those at Notre Dame. Until a few years ago, the government effectively made the private areas off-limits. “There used to be about 200 old keys, so it was very, very difficult,” says André Finot, a spokesman for Notre Dame. Eventually, the government standardized the keys and allowed its tenants to climb the hidden stone staircases and access the upper levels. “We were shocked when we got up there,” Finot says. 
 
 Some 854 years after construction began, Europe's most visited site, with about 12 million tourists a year, is in dire need of repairs. Centuries of weathering have worn away at the stone with pollution being the biggest culprit, July 2017. Vincent Fournier for TIME 
 
 The government hasn’t completely ignored the cathedral’s plight. In 2012, its bells were replaced to mark its 850th birthday. This year, authorities budgeted an extra €6 million ($6.84 million) to restore the spire. Water damage to the spire’s covering is threatening the wood-timber roof, which the medieval craftsmen built using 5,000 oak trees. The restoration will begin in the fall. But a Ministry of Culture official says Notre Dame should not expect regular help of this kind. To the government, the cathedral is just one of many old buildings in need of care. “France has thousands of monuments,” says the official, who was not authorized to speak to the media. Among them, Notre Dame is not necessarily the most pressing case. “It will not fall down,” she says. 
 
 Still, there is plenty of alarm in the church. Finally accepting that the government would not pay to restore the cathedral, the archdiocese launched Friends of Notre Dame in October to appeal for help. It hopes to raise €100 million ($114 million) in the next five to 10 years. “There is no part of the building untouched by the irreparable loss of sculptural and decorative elements, let alone the alarming deterioration of structural elements,” the organization says on its website. The cathedral, it says, “is in desperate need of attention.” 
 
 Picaud, a retired software executive who heads the fundraising effort, says he is planning a marketing drive in Paris in November. But he believes the bulk of the money will come not from the French but from Americans, millions of whom know Notre Dame and who are less hesitant than the French about giving money to the church. “People don’t want to give money because of laïcité,” says Finot, referring to the strict secularism that infuses French law. “So our message is, This is not about religion. It is about our heritage. Notre Dame is open to Muslims, and everyone.” Finot and Picaud expect to raise most of the funds through large donations and are discussing with government officials whether to acknowledge that generosity with a plaque at Notre Dame. 
 
 In April, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service granted Friends of Notre Dame tax-free status, and the organization is planning to hold a five-city American road show in spring 2018 in an all-out push to raise the money. By the time serious renovation work begins–perhaps sometime before the end of this decade–the damage could be worse than it is today. But at Notre Dame, history is counted not in years but in centuries. “We hope it will last forever,” Picaud says. “But it cannot last forever without this renovation.” 
 
 This appears in the August 07, 2017 issue of TIME. ||||| An integral and defining part of the Paris landscape, the world famous Gothic cathedral has weathered a revolution, two world wars and a topless feminist stunt ...and she's showing signs of the strain. 
 
 Vital repair work needs to be carried out to fix, among other things, a toppling gargoyle, cracks on the facade and the support structure for the church's famed stained glass windows. The list goes on...and on. 
 
 While an appeal for donations has already been launched in France, a foundation set up by the Archbishop of Paris last year -- Friends of Notre-Dame de Paris -- is now specifically targeting American donors. 
 
 After the foundation received charity status at beginning of May from the American tax authorities, it can now receive untaxed donations and so the project is well and truly underway. 
 
 The cathedral is looking for a total of around €150 million for repairs while the government currently donates €2 million a year. 
 
 Senior Advisor Fundraising for Friends of Notre-Dame, Michel Picaud told The Local that turning to Americans for financial help was an obvious move given the amount of interest in the cathedral from across the pond. 
 
 "It was put it to us that Notre-Dame is a world monument and we could look to raise money for its repair from outside of France," Picaud said. 
 
 "We receive many requests from Americans wanting to know if there is a channel they can use to donate," he said. "The cathedral is a big part of Paris' history but also a big part of American history in the city." 
 
 Friends of Notre-Dame will hold fundraising events in Paris as well as go on a US trip next spring, when it will visit Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and Washington, DC in an attempt to raise funds. 
 
 When Paris was liberated from occupying forces by French and American troops, the celebrations took place in front of Notre Dame, and today it is a stone's throw from legendary English bookshop Shakespeare and Company. 
 
 The good news for Notre-Dame is that Americans have a history of stepping in to save historic churches in France. In 2013, THe Local reported on the story of a Texas oilman donated $100,000 to fix the roof of a 13th-century church in the southwestern French town of Aurignac. 
 
 To donate to the renovations and find out more about Friends of Notre-Dame, you can visit their website here. ||||| Fundraising campaign launched to restore Paris landmark amid fears that parts of its exterior could fall 
 
 The archbishop of Paris is on a €100m fundraising drive to save the crumbling gargoyles and gothic arches of Notre Dame cathedral. 
 
 Each year up to 14 million people visit the 12th-century Paris landmark on an island in the Seine river. Building began about 850 years ago, but pollution and the passing of time have chipped off large chunks of stone. 
 
 “If we don’t do these restoration works, we’ll risk seeing parts of the exterior structure begin to fall. This is a very serious risk,” said Michel Picaud, president of the Friends of Notre Dame charity set up by the archbishop. 
 
 Church officials, who have created what they are calling a “stone cemetery” from fallen masonry, say the cathedral remains safe to visit. 
 
 Entry is free and the French state, which owns the building, devotes €2m (£1.9m) a year to repairs. But that is not enough to embark on major restoration works, the last of which were carried out during the 1800s, officials at the cathedral and charity said. 
 
 Notre Dame has long drawn tourists from around the world. It is most famous in popular culture as the setting for 19th-century author Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and films of the same name including the 1939 classic with Charles Laughton and the 1996 Disney musical animation. 
 
 The latter in particular raised the cathedral’s profile for modern-day tourists from across the world. 
 
 “It’s the movie for me, I just think of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and the book as well. After reading that book I actually really wanted to come see it,” said American Claire Huber as she visited the cathedral. 
 
 Church authorities hope the cathedral’s worldwide fame will attract donors, particularly from the US. 
 
 “Gargoyles are what people want to see when they come to Paris. If there are no more gargoyles, what will they see?” said Andre Finot, Notre Dame’s communications chief. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites.
– Attention, Americans: Notre Dame needs your help. A $120 million fundraising drive is underway to save the Gothic cathedral's famous façade and sneering gargoyles. The target audience: the 14 million visitors who flock to the 850-year-old landmark each year, a huge chunk of them from the US. "The cathedral is a big part of Paris' history but also a big part of American history in the city," Michel Picard, the head of the Friends of Notre Dame foundation, told the Local in June. The foundation, created last year by the archbishop of Paris, gained tax-exempt status in the US in May, and the charity is planning a fundraising trip next spring to several US cities, including Boston, Chicago, and LA. The French government contributes about $2.4 million annually for the upkeep of the double-towered edifice, an amount that can't fund the major restoration needed. A "stone cemetery" of toppled masonry is a testament to the "serious risk" the cathedral is facing if repairs don't happen soon to the worn and degraded exterior, Picard tells Reuters. Otherwise, "we’ll risk seeing parts of the exterior structure begin to fall," he says. Time looks at two reasons for the deterioration: Traffic-related "pollution is the biggest culprit," per the architect in chief of historic monuments in France. The other is a bit counter-intuitive: Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame drew attention to the building's then-deteriorating condition and spurred an 1844 restoration—but low-quality materials were used that haven't withstood the test of time. You can donate here.