After more than five years of frenetic reconstruction work, Notre Dame Cathedral showed its new self to the world Friday, with rebuilt soaring ceilings and creamy good-as-new stonework erasing somber memories of its devastating fire in 2019.

It was undergoing major restoration in 2019 when flames, thought to be the result of an accident, engulfed the medieval structure. Notre-Dame does not open to the public before the weekend of Dec.

Dame cathedral live on TV, giving the public a first look inside the building since much of it was destroyed or damaged in a huge fire in 2019. From the spire to the stained glass, it has been completely transformed.