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.
Building the Mt. Pleasant Observation Pier and Unbuilding P-8 and P-9
Today, a little follow up from both sides of the river. Here Mickey's team continues to drill the Pearman pier
Another view of the remaining piers next to the Sea Breeze
To be unbuilt
Drum Island - kind of lonely without the Grace and Pearman spans
Meanwhile on the Mt. Pleasant side - the worksite. To the left, work on the Mt. Pleasant Observation Pier, and to the right, Michael unbuilding P-8 and Timmy unbuilding P-9
And Billy cleaning up around the Coleman Recycle Center
The Ravenel Bridge - also kind of lonely
Setting up the crane platform for building the observation pier
Looking at the skeleton of the observation pier
From the side
Sometimes the fog walks in on little cat feet. Here, Grace walked out with clunky iron feet
Michael unbuilding P-8 and Timmy unbuilding P-9
another view
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
C. Frank Starmer