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.
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January 15, 2006: Singapore and the bridges of Singapore

Visiting Singapore (Graduate Medical School, Nanyang Technical University and the National University of Singapore) required a bit of jet-lag reversal. So off I walked, exploring building and unbuilding sites. The surprise was the number of pedestrian bridges over the Singapore River whose simplicity with varied structure was nothing short of elegant

The view from my hotel window - slightly blurred - just after I arrived at 2am

Singapore at night

the Singapore central area by day,

Singapore central area

the water front area and the Esplanade Bridge

Esplanade Bridge

Near the city center is Raffles Plaza and today, there was a Chinese dance show - as the Chinese New Year approaches (January 20, 2006)

chinese dancing

and music that simply enchanted me

chinese music

Calligraphy in the small

chinese calligraphy

and calligraphy in the large

chinese calligraphy

Preparations for Chinese New Year are everwhere and this guy is looking down on everything.

chinese balloon

The pedestrian and vehicle bridges across the Singapore River were varied and their design added to Singapore's enchantment

The Cavenagh Bridge

Cavenagh Bridge

As we were walking along the river, there suddenly appeared a group doing some sort of video or movie

camera and actors actors

and it was clear they were enjoying themselves

making movie Further down was the Elgin Bridge

Elgin Bridge

Then the Anderson Bridge

Anderson Bridge

The Alkaff Bridge - a fun multi-colored structure

Alkaff Bridge

and a view from below

Under the Alkaff Bridge

The Robertson Bridge near my hotel

and nice reflections with a bit of building in the background

Early morning from my hotel

to the left

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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