Unbuilding the Grace and Pearman Bridges


For Sparky and myself, curiosity drives passion which in turn fuels our life's engine. Our passion was capturing the story of both unbuilding the Grace (1929 - 2007) and Pearman (1966 - 2007) Bridges and discovering the unbuilders. It takes a lot of passion to track a project from July 2005 until April 2007 - rain, shine, hurricanes or moving to Singapore. We discovered the joy of discovery learning. Ken Canty opened the front door for us - then Steve Testa, Ponch Billingsley and Mickey Rogers opened many side doors. Below are the highlights of what we discovered, who we met and what we learned.

And a reminder from T.S. Eliot (East Coker from the Four Quartets)

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.

April 1, 2006:
A Survey from above

A small surprise: Aerial photos from SCDOT

Town Creek

The Grace Ramp before the May 16 blast

The west Grace anchor before the May 16 blast

The Pearman and Grace anchor segments before the west Pearman anchor blast

The east Grace and Pearman anchor sections before the April 5 blast

The east Grace and Pearman anchor sections before the April 28 blast

The residual east grace on ramp - a fishing exercise for Michael

Looking across the Cooper River - the evolution of a new skyline

Looking north-west

Drum Island

The Pearman and Grace main-spanless ship channel

Michael and his sleeping 1250

The Pearman and Grace anchors on the port side

Near East Bay St.

Near the community pool

and near Meeting St.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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