About 30 spectators gathered at the intersection of Haste Street and Telegraph Avenue Tuesday morning with smartphones and cameras at the ready as a demolition crane ripped the roof off of the apartment building that was destroyed in the Nov. 18 fire.
Over the next two weeks, the building will undergo a partial demolition process to reduce the risk of collapse. The decision to demolish the building was made after it was deemed structurally unsound and at risk of collapse. According to Gil Dong, deputy fire chief for the Berkeley Fire Department, the lower stories of the building will be braced by support beams and some of the walls of the upper stories will be removed in order to make the building safer for nearby residences and pedestrians.
The five-alarm fire — which has been called the city’s worst since the 1991 East Bay Hills Fire — gutted at least some of the building’s floors and caused the roof to cave, displacing all 68 tenants of the building located at 2441 Haste St.
City spokesperson Mary Kay Clunies-Ross said the top two floors of the buildings must be demolished by Dec. 5 per the partial demolition permit issued by the city last Wednesday.
According to a letter from the Berkeley Fire Department Fire Marshal John Fitch to building owners Kenneth and Gregory Ent, the demolition must exclude the area in and around the elevator mechanical room in the basement of the property to allow the fire marshal to complete a full investigation of the fire’s cause, which is not yet known.
Meanwhile, neighboring residents like Joe Quail — who lives in an adjacent building — have had to work around road closures that have resulted from the fire and subsequent demolition.
“It’s been pretty crappy having to deal with all this,” Quail said.
As of Tuesday morning, Telegraph was closed to vehicles and pedestrians from Channing Way to Haste Street.
Chloe Hunt of The Daily Californian contributed to this report.
Comment Policy
Comments should remain on topic, concerning the article or blog post to which they are connected. Brevity is encouraged. Posting under a pseudonym is discouraged, but permitted. The Daily Cal encourages readers to voice their opinions respectfully in regard to the readers, writers and contributors of The Daily Californian. Comments are not pre-moderated, but may be removed if deemed to be in violation of this policy. Click here to read the full comment policy.
Meanwhile, neighboring residents like Joe Quail — who lives in an
adjacent building — have had to work around road closures that have
resulted from the fire and subsequent demolition.
“It’s been pretty crappy having to deal with all this,” Quail said.
~
Hmm, I wonder if it’s as crappy as losing your home (temporary or otherwise) and all of your belongings.
I would like to know why the two bottom floors are being preserved. Won’t this constrain the redevelopment of the footprint of that ugly building? Won’t everything drag on through the usual Berkeley morass of permitting and compliance, and “historical preservation” stupidity? Can’t this space simply be replaced, on an expedited schedule, with a new multi-use modern building? Will we, the local merchants, be yet further cursed by the blight at the intersection of Telegraph and Haste? In brief, what is behind the preservation of the first two floors of this burnt out pile of crap? Dear Daily Cal reporters, can you provide some picture of what is really going on here?
Thank you, Ken Eastman, clerk, Moe’s books.
Officials still don’t know the reason for the start of the fire and need the bottom 2 floors and basement to be in contact in order to enter the building and proceed with the investigation. This is critical to allow compensations to the students, families and people who were victims and lost everything in the fire. If the whole building is demolished and there is no cause found then those who lost everything will get nothing for their grief and allow the owner to get away with corruption.
Yours, previous tenant of “this burnt pile of crap” that used to be my beloved home
From what I’ve read in other reports, they are going to demolish the whole thing – eventually – but they need to send fire inspectors in to check things out for reports and such to document what happened. However, they can’t do this with the building in its current state – it’s too dangerous – so they’re going to take the worst damage off the top (the top two floors) so it won’t fall in on anyone inspecting or fall far away from the building onto people outside of it.
Since the inspection will take some time, getting rid of the top floors that might easily fall will also allow pedestrians and cars to be able to use most of the street again (I presume they’ll fence off the immediate sidewalk around the building) and perhaps let next-door neighboring businesses and homes function again without the danger of the burned out top floors falling on them.
As a Cal alumni I will definitely miss the place. And even if it might have been a dodgy place to live, it was a lovely building from the outside.
Sorry, didn’t mean to reply to you, Past Tenant, but Kweastman, you beat me to it. ;)