Changing the face of Charleston : The unbuilding of the Grace and Pearman Bridges
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Unbuilding Highlights
(Apr 10)
Meeting St. Stories
(Jul 10 2006)
East Bay Stories
(Oct 10 2006)
Drum Island Stories
(Feb 17)
Pearman Bridge Stories
(Apr 3)
Grace Bridge Stories
(Apr 3)
Imposions: Prep and boom
(Mar 27)
Unbuilding Bridge Blog
(July 23 2006)
Unbuilding Challenges
(Mar 13)
Learning Links
(Feb 20)
Unbuilding Stories
(Mar 13)
Video and Sounds
(Feb 28)

October 20, 2005:
A view from above - lifting a concrete girder

A view of the setup on top of the Pearman approach: A hammer, a shear and three guys (Paul, Jackie and I forgot)

Coupling the hoisting cables to the concrete girder - the two lower guys are in a man basket from below.

A bit of burn surgery - cutting through the attachments at the far end

Then Jackie Using the shear to lift one end of the girder

Jackie and a bit of surgery here - gently lifiting one end of the girder

With the crane taking up the slack, Jack eases the shear grip and backs away

and the crane lifts - (I stitched a short video of the action click for video (6 Mb))

and lifts

and lifts

and now lowers the girder

down and down and down

until all that is left is the ghost of the pearman and a couple more girders

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Attribution: C. Frank Starmer and Sparky Witte from http://oldcooperriverbridge.org