by Adam Nichols
Two firefighters were killed yesterday when a nightmarish inferno engulfed a vacant skyscraper overlooking Ground Zero that was left decimated by the 9/11 attacks.
Fallen heroes Joe Graffagnino, 34, and Robert Beddia, 53, ran out of oxygen while trapped inside the former Deutsche Bank building, a maze-like warren of debris, sources said.
They died steps from The Pit where 343 of their brethren perished when the twin towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001 - including 11 from their own Engine 24/Ladder 5 firehouse.
"That house being hit again makes it all the more devastating," Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said at NYU Downtown Hospital.
Mayor Bloomberg called the deaths "another cruel blow to our city and to our Fire Department."
The blaze engulfed 10 floors of the eyesore and burned for seven hours - sending a cloud of black smoke over lower Manhattan and rousing painful 9/11 memories.
As flaming debris rained down, cops evacuated nearby apartments, and local residents worried about toxic fallout from the contaminated site.
The office tower, which was damaged when the south tower at the World Trade Center collapsed, was being dismantled floor by floor after years of delays.
Once 40 stories, it was down to 26 floors when the fire started on the 14th floor around 3:30 p.m.
The cause of the blaze was unknown, but a construction crew was working there yesterday afternoon and a police source said one of them may have been smoking.
The fire eventually went to seven alarms, drawing hundreds of Bravest to the scene. Five other firefighters were injured.
Graffagnino, an eight-year veteran from Brooklyn, and Beddia, a 23-year veteran from Staten Island, were running a hose up when they got trapped on the 14th floor, where they were found unconscious.
They suffered smoke inhalation that caused cardiac arrest, officials said.
They had air tanks, but it appears the oxygen ran out before they were found, a source said.
A paramedic who struggled to save one of the victims said it was a hopeless situation.
"He was dead from the moment they brought him out of the building," the emergency worker said. "We tried everything ... but nothing helped."
The loss seemed senseless to some firefighters.
"The city lets that building sit there for what, going on six years, and now two more firefighters die?" said one who worked with Graffagnino and Beddia. "It makes me sick."
Battling the flames was harrowing because of the condition of the partly demolished building - including a lack of water outlets inside.
"This fire was a nightmare. The standpipes for water were out of commission because the building was being torn apart," said a firefighter.
"Every floor was wrapped in heavy plastic sheeting because of the asbestos abatement work being done.
"Only one of the two construction elevators was working.
"Getting in and out was a mess - and two men died for this cursed building," the firefighter said.
Another said, "It was a maze inside. The building was a shell filled with combustibles."
Flaming plywood that had been nailed across windows destroyed on 9/11 fell to the ground, close to passersby and fire trucks, said witnesses.
Glass showered onto sidewalks as much as three hours after the fire first erupted.
More than four hours after the first report, it was upgraded to a seven-alarm.
The blaze was still not under control when the deaths of Graffagnino and Beddia were announced at NYU Downtown Hospital.
The widow of one of the men was inconsolable when she arrived.
"She was screaming, 'Please, let me know, is he dead?'" said Evelyn Franco, who was with a sick relative in the ER when the firefighters' families showed up.
"She was shouting, 'Oh my God, please, don't take him away.'She was hysterical. The place was full of firefighters. There were hundreds of them."
The mayor visited relatives at the hospital and reassured the public there was no health threat from the fire - even though asbestos and other hazards had been dumped on the building on 9/11.
Cops put in place a mandatory evacuation of 120 Greenwich Ave., an apartment building they feared could be hit by falling debris.
Voluntary evacuations were put in place at 106 and 110 Greenwich Ave.
Bloomberg dismissed claims the empty shell was in danger of collapse - but some residents were still concerned about its stability and the air quality.
"We worry about this building on a daily basis," said Battery Park City resident Tom Goodkind, 53, who was wearing a gas mask. "There's a scary amount of toxic chemicals in there."
The smoke from the fire was so thick it poured across the Hudson River to New Jersey and could be seen from midtown.
"We saw the smoke and we joked that it was coming from where the World Trade Center disaster was," said tourist Suhas Narkhede, 39, from Toronto.
"Then we saw the flames and thought, 'Oh no.' Bad things keep happening here."
Story reported by NICK REISMAN, VERONIKA BELENKAYA, NICOLE BODE, ALISON GENDAR, MELISSA GRACE and DORIAN BLACK.
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