IThey descended on Tribeca before daybreak. Dressed in white jumpsuits, white caps and gauze masks, six two-man teams jumped from their trucks at strategic points around the neighborhood and began deploying gear with the speed and precision of a SWAT Team.

It wasn’t bad guys this group was after but the spray-painted scrawlings defacing the walls and metal gates of northern Tribeca. And in the course of a few days last month, the men transformed more than 100 graffiti-covered storefronts into pristinely coated facades.

Their most impressive accomlishment was the obliteration of graffiti tags from virtually every store along one of the area’s most defaced arteries: Canal Street. Broadway, from Houston to Chambers streets, was also sprayed clean, as was Church, from Chambers to Canal.

Called in by the Mayor’s Graffiti Task Force, the men were from Graffiti Free NYC, a program run by the city’s Economic Development Corporation. The teams, which most often operate in the outer boroughs, use high-tech equipment in the age-old war on graffiti.

“They did a great job,” said John Balanca, the owner of Downtown Pizza at 315 Broadway. “I got a fresh coat of paint on the store and it looks like new.”

Other storeowners said they have long been having problems with graffiti. “We just got a new paint job a couple of months ago and it was covered with graffiti,” said Rene Bravo, the owner of Isobel’s Kitchen, at 65 Leonard St. “It looked terrible until they came and painted it silver.”

The head of Graffiti Free NYC, Craig Small, was directing the effort from a Ford Explorer, darting between job sites. With two cell phones clipped to his belt, Small watched with satisfaction as a crew painted the front of Superhot Messenger Service on Vestry Street.

“This makes the whole area look spiffier,” he said. “It gives the neighborhood a better feeling and makes people want to come shop down here.”

Everything that Small’s men need to wage their attacks is inside the “Graffiti Answers” trailer, a kind of paintstore on wheels, with a palette of colors that Small decided dominates the city landscape. Along with black and white, there is “brick red,” “plywood” (yellow), “urban tan” and the ever-popular (for roll-down gates) grey. In under two minutes the men can make a storefront graffiti-free. Flushing the hose of a paint gun clean and switching colors takes a matter of seconds.

When the program began in 1999, many business owners refused to have graffiti removed, suspicious that they would later be charged for the service.

“Now they know it’s free and they love us,” Small said. “They beg us to come.” Since taking to the streets, the program has removed over 40 million square feet of graffiti.

“It’s just great that they are doing this,” said John Ioele, the owner of Superhot Messenger Service, as he watched a team cover up graffiti on his storefront. “It makes the whole area look better. Now, the only problem is how are they going to keep it like that?”t