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.

December 13, 2006: Cleaning up the Navy recycle center

Off to the Navy yard - dec_13_navy_399_worksite.jpg

and here is the 995 - back from retrieving debris from the Cooper River work sites

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Jaws

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and from another perspective

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The 995

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Cleanup - cut, pickup and deposit

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Kind of gloomy in the fog

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This looks like Michael's 1250 - rigged for low-reach work

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and placing it into a waiting truck

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Bones for cleaning up

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more parts of the Pearman truss

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And Sparky art - inside a box girder

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Some views of the Jay Cashman

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Closer

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and the 995

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Michael's 1250

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and a last look at the Navy yard work site

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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