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.
Home Meeting St East Bay Drum Island Mt. PLeasant Pearman Stories Grace Stories Implosions Enginnering Insights Stories of unbuilders Learning Links Bridge Video Bridge Blog Unbuilding Archive All Unbuilding Segments Building the Ravenel Bridge Photo Essays About me
October 25, 2005: Work around East Bay

Between East Bay and Town Creek - almost all the roadway has been removed. Here is an early morning look at the East Bay overpasses. To the right, dropping the concrete girders from the Pearman ramp continues.

An early morning look at the Grace and Pearman skeletons.

Looking up from the Ravenel bicycle path as Michael picks up a roadway segment

One segment removed, one segment to go

Two segments removed

Mike's grapple, bathed in early monring sun and on to the next chunk of roadway To the left, you can see the concrete cutting machine run by the surgeons from Concrete Cutting and Breaking.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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