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.
Sparky does not melt in the rain. Here is a sample of the 600 photos he took yesterday. To demonstrate Pio's versatility, here he is directing three semi-autonomous activities - chewing up girders (Jackie, Roy and Chris), loading bite-size fragments (Steve) and felling the main span (mostly Richie).
The Navy Yard worksite - and Pearman main span minus the ends a bit more.
The worksite at lunch - all surgical instruments in the resting position
The west end of Pearman's main span
Here is Pio and his Quintet:
composed of a trio of Chris, Pio and Richie
and Steve DeMello on the grapple
and his Dale Earnhardt #3 high speed excavator
and his jaws
Roy on his shear
and Jackie playing his shear
Actually, its a sextet if you include Kathy, Richie's cheerleader. Here is
Kathy and her husband, Richie:
Young love is alive and well in this
family
Watch Steve load
Here is Roy, 3 shears and a grapple
High speed recycling
Chris and his shear
Jackie behind his shear's cage
Steve and his grapple
Serious shearing going on
Jaws
Cross bites (another relatively new surgical innovation requiring 2 shears)
Its raining, but nothing keeps Sparky from enjoying the day
Eating girders
Watch them Taking a bite of the main span (.8 Mb mpg). This is a superb example of the transverse biting procedure. More innovation from the Testa surgical team.
A closer view of the new transverse biting procedure
Lots of main span to chew on
Watch Richie burning (.8 Mb mpg)
Watch these guys pull the legs out from under Pearman's right side (1 Mb mpg) -
and the felled main span.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
C. Frank Starmer