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.
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October 1, 2005:
Finishing the Pearman Truss

Work has started on the Grace - removing the roadway over Town Creek

and in parallel - preparing the Pearman truss for dropping the structure in Town Creek next week

A crane is used to haul both men and equipment to the Pearman superstructure as shown here.

and a closer view here

Here is what remains of the Pearman roadway looking west (left) and looking east (right)

and a closer look at the expansion joint on the Charleston side

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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