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 22, 2005:
From the Ravenel Bridge Bicycle Path

The sun light is always full of surprises during early morning bicycle rides. This morning was no exception - looking east.

While Charleston's Stonehenge is gone (the work of Mickey Rogers and his Advanced Blast Services), work over Drum Island continues with dropping road segements of the Grace Bridge.

Two burners at work - high in their man basket.

Here is a section that was droppped yesterday

The Grace section over Town Creek and the missing Pearman section

Looking south, the Pearman overpass is gone. A nice view of the silhouette of Michael's grapple resting on the Grace

Here are Michael's jaws

and looking through the fence - Richie is buring and Michael is grabbing a freshly cut segment of roadway

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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