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.

March 20, 2006: Richie and Jackie - doing the Tango with Grace at the Navy Yard

What Manny and Scott and Nugget and Chucky and Chris wrought on Saturday (following by a chorus of "Up a lazy river" comes to rest at the Navy Yard here Team Orange takes over. Here, the worksite

Richie has his favorite orange sweatshirt on - and is playing the grapple while Jackie is without sun glasses and is playing the shear. Here Richie takes a bite of one of the floor girders. Watch Down and dirty

Not satisfied with this pace of work, he pickes up a pair of floor girders

Next - the dance - pulling a support pier from the barge. For some fun, watch them dance: Step 1

Step 2:

Next - Jackie displays his surgical skill with the grab

and bite

RIchie displays the same precision - note the beam is between his teeth

Then time for a yawn (sometimes know as displaying your jaws

Richie in his favorite orange sweatshirt

And another dance of pickup

- pull and chew starts: Watch another verse of Jackie and Richie - dragging the two-steppickup.

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C. Frank Starmer

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