Pamela Poole's Blog - Posts Tagged "pearman-bridge"
Something Old, Something New: Charleston's Cooper River Bridges
Visitors and locals to Charleston, SC, can vividly experience settings described in my novel Painter Place, which launches the Painter Place saga Painter Place. Readers will enjoy scenes that take place downtown and in the area, such as the Battery and Middleton Place. In the next novel of the series, Hugo, they can taste something of what it was like for those who lived through the devastation of this direct hit to the old city and upper coastal area.
Some interactions in my upcoming novel Hugo bring up the iconic emblems of the original bridges over the Cooper River, the Grace Memorial Bridge (Old Gracie), erected in 1929, and her sister structure, the Silas N. Pearman Bridge, built in 1966. These bridges were to Charleston what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris, or the Golden Gate Bridge is to San Francisco. When they were removed in 2005 after the opening of the fantastic new Ravenel Bridge, Charleston lost two significant historic landmarks. But they gained the third-longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere. It is designed to ride out winds greater than Hurricane Hugo and being shaken by a 7.4 magnitude earthquake.
The old bridges spanned the Cooper River, a tidal river that joins with the Ashley River to form scenic Charleston Harbor, where the Battery is at White Point Gardens on the peninsula. The river has long been part of the history of Charleston as an important commercial waterway. Old Gracie was almost three miles long and built to handle cars the size of Model A Fords of the 1920s. The bridge made Charleston more accessible, and when it became overwhelmed by the increasing population and size of vehicles on US 17, the larger Pearman Bridge was built parallel to it.
Old Gracie was dubbed “scariest bridge in the world,” and you can only appreciate this infamous title if you have ever driven across it. To give you a mere taste of the experience, I’ve included two links within this blog of people recording their crossing. Many more are on youtube, a testament to the reputation of the bridge. When I lived there, I was told the bridge inspector himself wouldn’t go on it, and after Hugo, many wouldn’t cross it again. If you want some stories, read the comments made by people who viewed the videos, and imagine an accident on one during rush hour! I have a grown family member I won’t name who was terrorized by the thought of traversing Old Gracie.
I’m focusing mostly on Old Gracie because she’s the one my characters won’t cross after Hugo, either, and gets mentioned twice by name. By 1995, the year the third novel in my Painter Place series (Jaguar) is taking place, the bridge scored only a 4 out of 100 (4%), or an F, in safety. This was also the year it was in a notable movie, Die Hard With A Vengeance (not a personal endorsement of the movie). In the scene where the two main characters jump from the bridge to the ship, observant viewers will notice that instead of the tall buildings you’d expect in New York, the background is marshy. The bridges were used in other movie sets as well, including White Squall with Jeff Bridges.
Arthur Ravenel Jr. ran for SC Senate as a way to solve the problem, with a vision for an 8 lane bridge to replace the Grace and Pearman sister structures. Construction started in 2001 and the new bridge opened in July 2005, at which point the original bridges closed for demolition. Pieces of them are scattered for historic purposes around the area or dropped into the river as reef for fish.
I’ve traveled the old bridges and the amazing new Ravenel Bridge was built while I was living there. In fact, a highlight of any trip I make back “home” to Charleston is to cross the new bridge, which doesn’t even feel like a bridge to me. The photo I included with this blog on my website is my own viewed at this link: http://pamelapoole.com/blog/91257/som...
I snapped this photo from the perspective of the marsh at Patriots Point where the USS Yorktown is anchored. One of the older bridges is being dismantled in the shadow of the new one. You can find better photos and beautiful paintings of the original bridges online.
Now for the interactive part of this blog--you can watch some trips across the bridges on youtube! For credits, follow the links. The first ones are of the oldest of the Cooper River Bridges, Grace Memorial (Old Gracie):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8e0j...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-auv...
I love this one! Once this family is on the Pearman bridge, they turn the cameras so you have views of Old Gracie on the driver’s left and the huge new Ravenel Bridge on the right. They show the Yorktown in the harbor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEJsK...
If you have some Cooper River Bridge stories, I hope you'll leave comments.
Some interactions in my upcoming novel Hugo bring up the iconic emblems of the original bridges over the Cooper River, the Grace Memorial Bridge (Old Gracie), erected in 1929, and her sister structure, the Silas N. Pearman Bridge, built in 1966. These bridges were to Charleston what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris, or the Golden Gate Bridge is to San Francisco. When they were removed in 2005 after the opening of the fantastic new Ravenel Bridge, Charleston lost two significant historic landmarks. But they gained the third-longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere. It is designed to ride out winds greater than Hurricane Hugo and being shaken by a 7.4 magnitude earthquake.
The old bridges spanned the Cooper River, a tidal river that joins with the Ashley River to form scenic Charleston Harbor, where the Battery is at White Point Gardens on the peninsula. The river has long been part of the history of Charleston as an important commercial waterway. Old Gracie was almost three miles long and built to handle cars the size of Model A Fords of the 1920s. The bridge made Charleston more accessible, and when it became overwhelmed by the increasing population and size of vehicles on US 17, the larger Pearman Bridge was built parallel to it.
Old Gracie was dubbed “scariest bridge in the world,” and you can only appreciate this infamous title if you have ever driven across it. To give you a mere taste of the experience, I’ve included two links within this blog of people recording their crossing. Many more are on youtube, a testament to the reputation of the bridge. When I lived there, I was told the bridge inspector himself wouldn’t go on it, and after Hugo, many wouldn’t cross it again. If you want some stories, read the comments made by people who viewed the videos, and imagine an accident on one during rush hour! I have a grown family member I won’t name who was terrorized by the thought of traversing Old Gracie.
I’m focusing mostly on Old Gracie because she’s the one my characters won’t cross after Hugo, either, and gets mentioned twice by name. By 1995, the year the third novel in my Painter Place series (Jaguar) is taking place, the bridge scored only a 4 out of 100 (4%), or an F, in safety. This was also the year it was in a notable movie, Die Hard With A Vengeance (not a personal endorsement of the movie). In the scene where the two main characters jump from the bridge to the ship, observant viewers will notice that instead of the tall buildings you’d expect in New York, the background is marshy. The bridges were used in other movie sets as well, including White Squall with Jeff Bridges.
Arthur Ravenel Jr. ran for SC Senate as a way to solve the problem, with a vision for an 8 lane bridge to replace the Grace and Pearman sister structures. Construction started in 2001 and the new bridge opened in July 2005, at which point the original bridges closed for demolition. Pieces of them are scattered for historic purposes around the area or dropped into the river as reef for fish.
I’ve traveled the old bridges and the amazing new Ravenel Bridge was built while I was living there. In fact, a highlight of any trip I make back “home” to Charleston is to cross the new bridge, which doesn’t even feel like a bridge to me. The photo I included with this blog on my website is my own viewed at this link: http://pamelapoole.com/blog/91257/som...
I snapped this photo from the perspective of the marsh at Patriots Point where the USS Yorktown is anchored. One of the older bridges is being dismantled in the shadow of the new one. You can find better photos and beautiful paintings of the original bridges online.
Now for the interactive part of this blog--you can watch some trips across the bridges on youtube! For credits, follow the links. The first ones are of the oldest of the Cooper River Bridges, Grace Memorial (Old Gracie):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8e0j...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-auv...
I love this one! Once this family is on the Pearman bridge, they turn the cameras so you have views of Old Gracie on the driver’s left and the huge new Ravenel Bridge on the right. They show the Yorktown in the harbor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEJsK...
If you have some Cooper River Bridge stories, I hope you'll leave comments.
