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 3, 2007: The last of the last

This is about the last of the last of the cleanup. And in many ways, a sad time for Sparky and myself

A couple of views of the worksite

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The last of the concrete pieces from the Grace base implosion

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Looking back - the lone Pearman pier and a mostly cleared area

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Packing the gravel maker

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The last of the gravel

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The last of the rebar

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The last barge

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The last of the loose ends

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The last flag

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The last pickup-rotate-dump

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The last dump

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the last of the concrete fragments

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The last of Manny

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and the last lift

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Sparky has discovered some new tricks and here are a couple of images he has treated

Drum Island and the Ravenel Bridge, with the Grace and Pearman Bridges

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Preparing for lowering the Pearman mainspan - Feb 17, 2006

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The night before lowing the Pearman mainspan, Feb 21, 2006

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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