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
December 16, 2006: Nearing the end of unbuilding Grace

Sparky and Teasie got an early start - first - getting there

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and Teasie - who generously donates Sparkys time to our projects - a bit Merry Christmas to Teasie and her generosity!

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and from the Ravenel Bridge they watched Carlos, Nugget, Manny and Stan do their thing.

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Clearly from the bicycle/jogging lane - there is a pretty good view of Manny and friends, unbuilding Grace - here lifting a section

and rotating

and lowering it

Then a display of aerial acrobatics

Carlos practicing his climbing skills and getting into position

A view of the worksite - trussless Pearman piers and half the Grace superstructure with temporary supports in the middle

Carlos start a little cutting action to remove one of the vertical columns

climbs into the chillin' position

then Manny starts lifting

Its a Christmas light

down

and on the ground

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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