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.

November 19, 2005: Removing the Grace skeleton

Sparky is back and caught the ever-changing Stonehenge presence between East Bay and America St

Not much left of the Pearman ramp

Looking east, you can see the 7550's nose as Chris stabilizes a Grace segment

and in parallel, chewing and eating should and girder segments of the Pearman ramp

A nice view of the Grace skeleton from the Ravenel Bicycle lane

Looking west from East Bay - just a Stonehenge momument

Working on a Grace segment with the 7550

Another inside look

Cutting through the left girder

and the right girder

and an inside look

A last look at a vanashing monument - the East Bay Stonehenge and Grace's skeleton

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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