Beloved former New York Post paginator Dominick ‘Dom’ Marrano dies at 74

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Dominick “Dom” Marrano, The Post’s beloved former chief paginator known for his good nature and “Brooklyn-basted wisdom,” died Sunday after a long battle with lung cancer and emphysema. He was 74.

Born and raised in Gravesend, Marrano made his bones on The Post’s copy desk in the early 1970s.

He toiled at the tabloid for nearly 37 years before he retired in 2008 to care for ailing wife Janet, who died in 2012.

“He was the most honest, credible, high-integrity guy I knew,” said sports columnist Phil Mushnick, who met Marrano when he joined The Post as a copy kid in 1973.

At the time, Marrano was part of what Mushnick called “our internal mafia” of “Brooklyn Italian guys straight out of central casting.” So much so that Marrano once auditioned for HBO’s “The Sopranos.”

“I looked up to him,” Mushnick said, “I wanted to be around Dom Marrano.”

The two once spent hours outside the ring at Madison Square Garden’s Felt Forum “dodging bottles” when a riot broke out after a boxing match in the ’70s.

“He was brilliant,” Mushnick recalled. “He had a great perspective, an ability to boil things down into very few words … very concise, very entertaining and to the point.”

Marrano earned a reputation as a hard-working and fun-loving newspaperman and was also remembered by his numerous friends as a kind and generous mentor to younger generations of reporters.

“He was a great man and a good friend,” former Post paginator Richard “Rico” Rossiello said. “He looked out for people.”

Childhood friend Peter Tocco said it was Marrano who got him his job at The Post, where he worked for about 40 years.

“We grew up at the paper,” he said.

While he didn’t have any kids himself, Marrano had lots of nieces and nephews and was “great with everyone else’s children,” Tocco said.

“He my best man, godfather to my first son … I trusted him with my life.”

Journalist Jerry Capeci said Marrano and his wife “served as an extra set of parents for my kids.

“Dom was a very special guy,” Capeci said. “He was a good newspaperman, a great friend.”

Marrano, who loved the ocean and enjoyed fishing, spent the last 12 years of his life in Long Beach, friends said. He also had the travel bug, setting off on trips to China and South Africa.

“The mark of the man was that he was a good man,” Mushnick said.

Loved ones can say their final goodbyes Tuesday from 4 to 8 p.m. at Cusimano & Russo Funeral Home in Brooklyn, where a eulogy will be given at 6 p.m.

The family will have a private burial service Wednesday at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

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