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.
Happiness is email from Sparky
Sparky is the man - and even from Singapore, his grin keeps me going
and as you probably have noticed - Sparky is an inside man - here, an inside view of a a box girder
and an inside view of a ladder
Tools of the trade - a crane for lifting (recently repaired)
A barge for the reef transplantation process. This particular barge opens from the bottom so that the residual bridge debris drops out of the bottom instead of being dropped over the side
Post processing continues at the Navy Yard - Pearman bones but not without wear and tear. Here, shears with dull blades don't shear very effectively - and Jerome restores the shearing potential of these giant sissors.
One of the cutting surfaces
and of course, Jaws and Jerome's repair shop
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
C. Frank Starmer