PARIS – A Michigan woman who posted a photo of a man swinging a little girl in front of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris an hour before it caught fire is hoping to find the man she captured.
Brooke Windsor, who is from Fenton, according to her Facebook page, posted the photo to Twitter late Monday night, hours after the fire destroyed parts of the iconic building.
Recommended Videos
"I took this photo as we were leaving #NotreDame about an hour before it caught on fire. I almost went up to the dad and asked if he wanted it. Now I wish I had. Twitter if you have any magic, help him find this," Windsor wrote.
The tweet went viral, with more than 100,000 retweets as of Tuesday morning. Windsor added a tweet earlier today, saying: "I do not know for sure if it was a dad and daughter, it’s simply the dynamic I observed from them while debating on interrupting this moment. It may be an uncle, brother, friend, who knows until we find them."
Firefighters declared success Tuesday in a more than 12-hour battle to extinguish an inferno engulfing Paris’ iconic Notre Dame cathedral that claimed its spire and roof, but spared its bell towers and the purported Crown of Christ.
What remained was a blackened shell of the monument immortalized in Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” a building that had survived almost 900 years of tumultuous French history but was devastated amid renovation works at the start of Catholic Easter week.
Its iconic twin bell towers remained visibly intact. Paris officials said the world famous 18th century organ that boasts 8,000 pipes also appeared to have survived, along with other treasures inside the cathedral, after a plan to safeguard heritage was quickly put into action.
Paris Deputy Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire described authorities’ “enormous relief” at the salvaging of pieces such as the purported Crown of Christ, which were transported to a “secret location” after the fire. Statues removed just days ago for restoration work were also spared.
The 12th-century church is home to a 18th-century organ, relics, stained glass and other works of art of incalculable value, and is a leading tourist attraction.