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.

February 4, 2006: From Meeting St to the Port

Looking East from Meeting Street (July 20, 2005)

Looking East from Meeting Street today

Unbuilding is complete and now rebuilding has started

Here is the rampful Grace (August 18, 2005)

Here is the rampless Grace

Looking south on East Bay (July 20, 2005)

and today

The Grace and Pearman structures (August 5, 2005)

The Grace and Pearman skeletons today

and tenacity of purpose

One column down, one column to go

and from the Port - the end of the line for the Grace and Pearman trusses

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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