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.
Looking from Meeting St to East Bay - this area has entered the reverse unbuilding stage - sometimes referred to as construction
Looking toward East Bay from the remainder of the Grace off ramp
which is only about 6 ft high
Later, looking from East Bay St. toward Meeting St though the lone Pearman support
Looking toward Meeting St
and looking north up East Bay St.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
C. Frank Starmer