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.
Continued progress from Meeting St. to East Bay
Meeting St.
The community pool
The Pearman and Grace approaches at the port
Transition to the Town Creek bridges
The Town Creek skeletons: Note the white barrels on top of the Pearman, preparing for the initial explosive unbuilding of the Town Creek main span
Drum Island as the Grace and Pearman cross from the Charleston side
and the Pearman piers = Stonehenge
The Coleman recycle center
The Cooper River channel
Picking Pearman girders
Back to Stonehenge on the east side of Drum Island
and Drum Island
Town Creek - and maybe Pio's crew removing the roadway
and the area around America St.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
C. Frank Starmer