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.

March 13, 2007: Manny and his cleanup act

Its clean-up time. What remains is the stub of the tooth and Manny and team will finish the job

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Inspecting the after-blast remains

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One of the remaining blankets - Another Sparky art photo

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Pulling the spud to relocate Manny's barge

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The cleanup site

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Repositioning the barge

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What I call the "pushover" worksite

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Our man, Manny

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Paul discussing the pushover strategy

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using the 1250 - with Manny sitting in Michael's old seat

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Before starting - this will be a duet for two grapples - Manny on the barge with the 1250 and ? on the port side

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The cargo container barrier

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Click and watch moving the cargo container. Here, starting to move the cargo box

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and moving

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and with the cargo barrier clear

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and the 1250 in position -

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Its time for the big pushes

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Manny takes a bite

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and here is the pier core

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and the push sequence

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Splash

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Next position and

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push,

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push,

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and splash

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And again - practice makes perfect.

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Cleaning the top of the pier foundation

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Help from the port side

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Cleanup

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Manny and Paul

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More cleaning

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Manny at the 1250 controls

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and so it goes

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Click to watch Manny clean the top of the foundation - and taking another bite

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Cleaning the top of the foundation

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and here, a little fix-it job

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Carlos - king of the mountain

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Finished

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The captain - that has been positioning the barge

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and closing with a piece of "Sparky art"

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

C. Frank Starmer

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