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.
- Video segment
- Loading the last of the clean-up
A couple of views of the worksite
The last of the concrete pieces from the Grace base implosion
Looking back - the lone Pearman pier and a mostly cleared area
Packing the gravel maker
The last of the gravel
The last of the rebar
The last barge
The last of the loose ends
The last flag
The last pickup-rotate-dump
The last dump
the last of the concrete fragments
The last of Manny
and the last lift
Sparky has discovered some new tricks and here are a couple of images he has treated
Drum Island and the Ravenel Bridge, with the Grace and Pearman Bridges
Preparing for lowering the Pearman mainspan - Feb 17, 2006
The night before lowing the Pearman mainspan, Feb 21, 2006
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
C. Frank Starmer