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.
Clean-up:
Sparky has been checking up at the Cooper River worksite and at the Navy Yard.
Here is a view of the Grace on ramp from the Mt. Pleasant side
and what remains of the supports
The jackup barge has shifted to C-3 and looks like Mickey's team is up to something
a closer look
Meanwhile, back at the Navy Yard - continued chewing of Grace and Pearman segments, loading and shipping off to that great recycling center somewhere
A grapple and shear - Jackie playing the grapple while Steve is playing the shear. Unseen is Richie - all over the place running the smaller equipment and applying his artistic touch with his torch.
A serious bite with the shear - Steve in action while
some serious gapple action - Jackie in action
and Sparky's artistic touch of Jackie and the grapple
framing the grapple with the shear
and sunset
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
C. Frank Starmer