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 16, 2006: A view from above

Manny, with baseball cap in place to move the elevator to the top floor

dec_16_sparky_241.jpg

Carlos and Stan riding the elevator

dec_16_sparky_243.jpg

A rarely seen side of Grace

dec_16_sparky_246.jpg

Nugget

dec_16_sparky_249.jpg

Looking down at Manny

dec_16_sparky_250.jpg

The Pearman bearings

dec_16_sparky_251.jpg

and the Ravenel Bridge

dec_16_sparky_253.jpg

Looking down the temporary support

dec_16_sparky_255.jpg

Nugget

dec_16_sparky_256.jpg

Carlos and Nugget

dec_16_sparky_257.jpg

The "to do" list

dec_16_sparky_259.jpg

A very interesting view of the Ravenel bracketed by the Grace and Pearman bearings

dec_16_sparky_260.jpg

hmmm - a great skateboard ramp

dec_16_sparky_263.jpg

and its downhill continuation

dec_16_sparky_265.jpg

A better view of the Grace skateboard ramp skeleton. And check out the rejuvenated green space (upper left) between East Bay and Meeting Street.

dec_16_sparky_277.jpg

Carlos inside and Nugget outside

dec_16_sparky_276.jpg

and what a view of the Ravenel Bridge

dec_16_sparky_279.jpg

Stan and Robbie

dec_16_sparky_286.jpg

Elevator going down

dec_16_sparky_288.jpg

and down

dec_16_sparky_298.jpg

Looking down Manny's boom

dec_16_sparky_300.jpg

The elevator, Paul and Manny's hook

dec_16_sparky_307.jpg

And just so you don't think we have forgotten about the Ravenel Bridge - Sparky got a sequence of these. Wonderful reflections, light streaks of moving cars - simply wow!

dec_18_sparky_016_ravenel.jpg

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

C. Frank Starmer

_