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.
Manny, with baseball cap in place to move the elevator to the top floor
Carlos and Stan riding the elevator
A rarely seen side of Grace
Nugget
Looking down at Manny
The Pearman bearings
and the Ravenel Bridge
Looking down the temporary support
Nugget
Carlos and Nugget
The "to do" list
A very interesting view of the Ravenel bracketed by the Grace and Pearman bearings
hmmm - a great skateboard ramp
and its downhill continuation
A better view of the Grace skateboard ramp skeleton. And check out the rejuvenated green space (upper left) between East Bay and Meeting Street.
Carlos inside and Nugget outside
and what a view of the Ravenel Bridge
Stan and Robbie
Elevator going down
and down
Looking down Manny's boom
The elevator, Paul and Manny's hook
And just so you don't think we have forgotten about the Ravenel Bridge - Sparky got a sequence of these. Wonderful reflections, light streaks of moving cars - simply wow!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
C. Frank Starmer