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When I wrote that the Sequoia Apartments fire was a death-blow to Telegraph businesses (Planet: Nov. 20), I never considered that all of us had received the death blow. 

While reporting on the effect of the fire to the intersection of Haste and Telegraph, I had missed the story of a lifetime—that we had all been murdered, as in the famous film noir, D.O.A. (dead on arrival), 1950. 

But especially high winds Saturday, and the usual congregation of Sequoia demolition-gawkers, squawkers, and rumor-mongers, brought home the death point, and a few others. 

A messenger of doom descended on us Saturday, gesticulating, screaming, and just freaking out—warning everyone we would all die in thirty years from breathing asbestos. I had witnessed less dramatic warnings near the demolition site last week, including a few gawkers wearing dust-masks. 

None of them matched the vehemence of the asbestos prophet-of-doom. 

I'm not saying we won't all die someday. 

Workers at the demolition site wore industrial-strength gas masks, even as dust from falling walls and bricks were continuously water-hosed throughout the later stages of the demolition. 

Still, the high winds and a stink, like burning rubber filled the air. It was my longest day on the scene, as I refused to leave for fear of missing a photo of the last crumbling apartment house wall. 

I don't want to make light of the asbestos danger to people who actually have thirty years to live. 

I don't have that long. 

And I don't want to alarm anyone either, especially people who live and work in the immediate vicinity—which includes me, because I practically live at the notorious Cafe Mediterraneum, almost across the street from the Sequoia. 

I'm just raising the asbestos issue so that my fellow demolition-gawkers, last week, can consult their doctors. 

Let's call the asbestos alert "street supervisor's" hearsay at this stage. Rumors ran wild among gawkers all week. It gets boring during waits between raining bricks and thunderous thuds. 

Some of the street supervisor's observations follow: 

"Why didn't they just blow it up, or use a wrecking ball? Why didn't they plastic wrap it, like the building on Haste (Edith Head apartments, presently wrapped in plastic). Why can't they let us walk through to Channing on the West side of Telegraph? When will Raleigh's and Intermezzo re-open?" (That last one was me, and I foolishly clung to such hopes even though I was recently asked to leave Raleigh's for not ordering food at the bar during a football game, and wouldn't eat a—Intermezzo's—salad, a salad taller than me. 

At Sequoia, there's little left to gawk at , as all but a corner section of the first floor—which endangers an adjacent building, is picked apart brick by brick. Only the lone remnant of the Sequoia stood Sunday, awaiting more precision brick extractions Monday. 

Monday, the Sequoia will be gone, a pale footnote in the history of Berkeley fires, which includes a 1923 fire that consumed some 640 structures, including 584 homes in the densely-built neighborhoods north of the university. 

Monday, the city will meet with the Sequoia's owners, and the demolition team, to map out plans for debris removal and restoring foot-traffic between Channing and Haste, now requiring a three block detour by foot that has reportedly kept shoppers from nearby stores. 

Representatives of the city met at cafe Mediterraneum Friday afternoon with Telegraph property owners to brief them on demolition progress. City representatives are trying to open the block between Haste and Channing in time to avoid re-locating the 28th annual Telegraph Holiday Fair, Dec. 16-18, and 22-24. 

But Janet Klein, organizer of the popular event says that the walks will have to be ready no later than three days before the event to avoid re-routing.