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.

December 15, 2006 Unbuilding at the port

Joe is unbuilding the box girders while

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Here is Chris Wakeman and fellow acrobats are taking on the Grace superstructure

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The remaining Grace truss and temporary support. Manny is holding it all together

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Nice view of the Grace skeleton, Manny's crane and a lonely Pearman pier

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To the left - you see the support cables to Manny's crane and an acrobat in disguise, cutting one of the interior cross members

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A closer view

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and Carlos on the left, making a parallel cut. You can always tell Carlos because he wears a white hard hat (but Paul does also).

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4th of July on Dec 15th

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About a year ago, Nugget was demonstrating the 6 major ironworker acrobat position. Here is Carlos in position 4

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cutting away

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This looks like Nugget in position 0

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and Stan in the getting ready position

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With both sides cut - Manny takes over, slowly lifting

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Did you ever think about Manny's job. He sits in the cab, with baseball cap in position, looking up and using fly by wire - lifts these sections while nagivating structural obstacles.

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Carlos and Stan and Nugget maintain the communication - but, watching Manny work is really something!

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Now clear of all the obstacles

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and on its way down

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down

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down

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and gently laying it down

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slowly

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Down and now decoupling and the next stage of unbuilding. Paul (you can tell by his white hat and his white shirt) is pleased

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Our ground team

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removing the cables

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and Manny moves his rig back to the top

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where the support cables are attached

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by our acrobats

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step 2

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step 3

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and a Sparky art photo looking up the boom

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Ready for taking up the slack

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and back to cutting

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A view of cutting on both sides

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Carlos starting his cut

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and not sure who this is

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A good view of the cross piece stabilized by Manny

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Carlos making the final cut

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Then

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up

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up

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and away

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Manny navigating again and then lifting the section

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nd slowly rotating over the top

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up

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and to the left

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slowly

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slowly

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to the left

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all clear and now down

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down

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down

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and down to the ground

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The stress on various Grace members is showing. Here the base is cut in order to reduce the stress on that section - enabling our acrobats to remove a front cross-member without movement from the back section being transferred to the front.

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The other side

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and an overview

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Another Sparky art photo - simply wow!

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where Michael and his buddies are working on the excavators

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and a hydraulic hammer

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Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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