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 19, 2006: The last of the Grace Superstructure

The worksite at about 9:30. Chris Vocci and his 7750 coupled to the rear of the Grace superstructure

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and Manny stablizibing the front of the Grace superstructure

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Carlos (on the near side) and Stan on the far side

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Nugget in the front

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Fire from Nugget over the temp support and Carlos in the middle (right)

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Chris holding up his end, Manny holding up his end and our acrobats doing their thing

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Stan (left) and Carlos (right) making the splice plate cut

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Here is a catalog of the cutting positions - according to the Nugget classification system. Nugget has revised his classfication system - check the March 18, 2006 edition. Carlos demonstrating position 1, the sitting position

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Stan demonstrating position 2, the kneeling position

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Carlos demonstrating position 3, the prone position

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Stan demonstrating position 4, the straddle position

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A full view of position 4

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Stan demonstrating position 5, the bending position

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Nugget demonstrating position 0, the chillin' position

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Stan make a small variation in position 5, the bending position

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Carlos displaying position 6, the back away position

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Separation below

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and separation above

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and Manny starts his platex maneuver, lift and separate

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Up, up and away. Click to watch Manny do his thing (4 MB mpg)

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While Chris stablizes the other half

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Total separation

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a little rotation

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and down

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under the watchful eyes of Carlos and Stan

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more rotation and lowering

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down

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Almost down

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and touchdown

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And here she is

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Now Manny drops the lift cables

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and a pleased Paul and Manny

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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