by MATTHEW CHAYES
Three firefighters at a time marched toward the closed coffin of their fallen comrade Tuesday. In unison, they paused and saluted as Joseph Graffagnino's widow stood next to his Ladder No. 5 helmet and a rotating honor guard from his firehouse, which lost 11 men at Ground Zero on 9/11.
It lost two more with the deaths of Graffagnino and Robert Beddia Saturday.
The wake for the firefighter who died battling a blaze at an abandoned office tower near Ground Zero was on the first of four successive days of somber rites for the city's fire department.
When Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Saturday night that Graffagnino, 33, and Beddia, 53, a senior firefighter, had died of carbon-monoxide poisoning at the former Deutsche Bank building, he promised to "honor their memories as we have all of their fallen brothers."
So Bloomberg, Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta and a delegation of local officials paid their respects Tuesday at the Andrew Torregrossa & Sons Funeral Home, located across the street in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, from the pork store where Graffagnino once worked to put himself through high school and college.
Bloomberg and Scoppetta will go Wednesday afternoon to Beddia's wake in Staten Island, and to funerals for both men later this week.
And so mourned the brothers at Graffagnino's wake, each wearing the wool dress blue uniforms they put on rarely.
In a room of tears and more than two dozen funeral sprays, , two photo collages showed Graffagnino during happier times: showing off a fish he caught, kissing one of his buddies on the cheek, posing for a wedding picture with his bride and a bright red firetruck.
Staten Island firefighter Dan Fennell, who attended the fire academy with Graffagnino almost nine years ago, stood on 79th Street and talked of happier times.
"He always had a smile from ear to ear," Fennell, 47, said after paying his respects.
The two men lost touch after the academy, but Fennell, who is with Engine 167, said he felt obliged to come. He recalled Graffagnino's great strength and agility carrying the heavy water hose. "He was good," Fennell said. "He stayed in shape."
Still, said Fennell, "once you're on the job," real-world conditions can present challenges -- which few would be better able to handle than Graffagnino, Fennell said.
"It's Dante's Inferno," Fennell said. "You're handling the beast."
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