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.

February 1, 2006:A view from above: SCDOT

More views from above - here East Bay, the entrance to the Columbus Street Terminal and the Tasta yard

Town Creek and the jack-up barge

The ship channel - Grace and Pearman superstructures

Pio and his Graceful team

The Coleman Recycle center

Looking west over the Ravenel, Pearman and Grace structures

The new Ravenel Bridge is always a delight

Town Creek and tenacity of purpoase

The Grace and Pearman superstructures

Looking along Meeting Street at the I-26 junction

Looking east along the old US 17 path

And in the beginning, here is where the Pearman on-ramp started

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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