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 17, 2007: The Mt Pleasant Pier and cleanup at the port

Sparky made a visit to the two remaing worksites - the Mt. Pleasant Pier and the Port. Here is the almost completed Mt. Pleasant Pier

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and the worksite

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Then driving over the Ravenel Bridge - to visit the port

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This makes me a bit homesick - Freyssinet and their stay cables

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More homesick

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and more homesick

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The port worksite

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Mickey's team is already working - the Copco in place for drilling the Grace foundation

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Cleanup

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The Grace pier leftovers

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Randy fetching and toting debris

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A good view of the port worksite

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Randy fishing for debris

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Sparky art - a very nice reflection of Manny's crane

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And a pile of Grace debris

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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