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.
Home Meeting St East Bay Drum Island Mt. PLeasant Pearman Stories Grace Stories Implosions Enginnering Insights Stories of unbuilders Learning Links Bridge Video Bridge Blog Unbuilding Archive All Unbuilding Segments Building the Ravenel Bridge Photo Essays About me
August 27, 2005: A summary from East Bay to Meeting Street

Looking up the Grace - US 17 on ramp - almost all removed

From Sparky

The Hanover overpass on Saturday - our surgeons are making great progress toward the Pearman approach

Pre-op preparations of the Nassau St Overpass - soon to go

On Sunday, the Nassau overpass is mostly girders now (from Sparky)

Looking east - most of the US-17 approach from the Grace off-ramp is gone and a bit more work remains to get to East Bay

Looking east from Meeting Street - with the Ravenel Bridge in the background

Now that the Meeting Street overpass is gone, our surgeons are working their way backwards along US 17 toward the East Bay exit.

From Sparky - another view of the Hanover St Overpass (from Sparky)

Exit 221B from I26 - most of the rubble cleared - and you can see the the skeleton of the Pearman branch off the I26 ramp (on the left)

The new Meeting Street - looking north

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C. Frank Starmer

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