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.

January 21, 2006: Removing the downhill section of the Grace ramp

Walking up the Grace Ramp - suddenly, the guard rail was a bird resting place. Knowning nothing about birds, is this a little blue heron?

A sea gull but I have found so many variants (check out Google Images (seagull) or Google Images (sea gull) I am not sure about the specifics).

The walk to the Grace worksite is getting shorter and shorter. Since Pio, Richie, Speedy and Roy work backwards - they are now on the downhill part of the Grace ramp (uphill if you were driving up) and soon there will be no more Grace ramp.

Their current location on the east side of the main span support that they filled with sand last week. Only the skeleton remains - and Monday, they will cut and remove these floor girders.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

_