Newsday

It began slowly, with early-morning dog-walkers pausing as they passed the big, red wooden door on Sixth Avenue. Then came men in blue shorts and FDNY T-shirts, grieving silently.

Soon there was a trickle of civilians carrying paper-wrapped bouquets from nearby florists. They deposited them at two impromptu memorials that steadily grew on the sidewalk. Black and purple bunting was draped over the door later Sunday afternoon.

"A loss is a loss, but more so this time because it was at ground zero. It hits very close to home," said Art Weber, 35, a firefighter from Clifton, N.J.

The ritual was the same, if far less intense, as it had been on the day nearly six years ago when terrorists flew hijacked jetliners into the World Trade Center, killing more than 2,700 people. On that day, the station that is home to Battalion 2, Ladder 5 and Engine 24 lost 11 of the 343 firefighters who did not survive.

Fr. Joseph Lorenzo, a Franciscan priest from the nearby St. Anthony of Padua church, arrived "to offer consolation," as priests from the same parish had done on Sept. 11.

Most of Sunday's visitors did not know Robert Beddia, 53, or Joseph Graffagnino, who would have turned 34 on Monday. The two firefighters died of smoke inhalation on Saturday while fighting a fire at the former Deutsche Bank building, a 41-story skyscraper damaged by debris on Sept. 11 that was being painstakingly dismantled.

Graffagnino, who joined the department in 1999, leaves a wife and two small children, said a neighbor, Mario Vigorito, who grew up next door to Graffagnino in Brooklyn's Dyker Heights section. "He was a very nice guy, from a close family," said Vigorito.

Graffagnino was at the trade center with Ladder 5 on Sept. 11, said another neighbor, Teddy Etimos. Beddia also responded to the twin towers with Engine 24, but "he wouldn't talk about it," said Francois Moulin, 63, who lives near the firehouse.

On the morning of the terrorist attack, firefighters from this firehouse were as high up as the 37th floor of the north tower, looking for survivors. Like scores of other rescuers that day, some were lost in the collapse. Sept. 11 wasn't the first tragedy for the firehouse, which lost three men in a SoHo apartment fire in 1994.

Moulin recalled that Beddia also worked part-time as a bartender at Chumley's, a popular Greenwich Village tavern, and drove an Alfa Romeo sports car.

"I knew him well," said Moulin, adding that the handsome bachelor "loved life, he loved women and he loved his job."

"He never talked about the dangers of the job. It wasn't his style to talk about it," added Moulin, who described himself as a former Green Beret who served in Vietnam and later worked in film production.

Four motorcyclists who belong to America's 9/11 Foundation Inc., a group supporting police, firefighters and other first responders, came from as far as Virginia to pay their respects. Also stopping by was Squad 18, another Village-based FDNY unit that lost seven members at the World Trade Center and five others in a floor collapse in October 1966.

Among those leaving flowers were Eric and Lanita Hazard, transplanted Texans who live in an apartment building behind the former Deutsche Bank building. They found themselves unable to get home after Saturday's fire.

"The two firefighters who lost their lives _ these are our firefighters," said Eric Hazard, 29, who works in public relations. "They came to our neighborhood, and we feel very connected."

Amid it all, routine paralleled ritual.

At one point the big red door opened and Engine 24, nicknamed the Red Rover and decorated with a bulldog in its grill, rolled out and turned up Sixth Avenue, siren wailing. While it was away, a city sanitation truck backed up to the curb and collected the trash.

Associated Press writer Verena Dobnik contributed to this report.