IT’S NOT FUNNY: Once the comedy home of Milton Berle, with producer Sharon Klein in 2002, the Friars Club (right) is fighting MTA plans.
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Leave it to the MTA to suck the fun out of everything — even the legendary Friars Club.
A gaggle of celebs — including Jerry Lewis and Susan Lucci — are roasting the transit agency’s construction plans that could permanently silence the House That Milton Berle Built.
The club could withstand the verbal bombs let loose in legendary roasts of Richard Pryor, Chevy Chase and Billy Crystal — but its home base can’t stand up to the blasting the MTA needs to do to install a massive LIRR ventilation plant on East 55th Street.
The century-old town house — for which Berle co-signed the mortgage nearly 60 years ago — might not be able to withstand the construction, which will last at least two years.
That could spell doom for the club, as closely associated with the five-story building as the Borscht Belt comics were with the now-defunct summer hotels in the Catskills.
It’s enough to make Lewis — whose legendary 2006 roast was so over-the-top he suffered a heart attack on the flight home afterward — sound somber.
“The project that the MTA has planned for 55th Street would seriously hinder the good work of the Friars Club,” Lewis told The Post.
Most days the legendary club is a friendly meeting place for members, two-thirds of whom come from the entertainment field.
Last week’s lunch crowd ranged from soap icon Lucci to ex-Mayor David Dinkins to Abe Vigoda.
“You feel the history when you walk in,” said Lucci. “I would hate to see New Yorkers deprived of such a wonderful place.”
The construction is part of the over-budget and behind-schedule $7.3 billion plan to bring the LIRR in to Grand Central Terminal.
Agency brass said it needs to shut down part of East 55th Street between Park and Madison, known as Friars Club Way.
And even if the building is strong enough to sustain the construction blasts, the street will be whittled down to one lane, restricting parking and deliveries, said Sid Davidoff, a partner at the Davidoff Malito & Hutcher law firm that the club retained.
The blasting and drilling will also destroy the club’s lunch, dinner and special-event business, he added.
“We can’t guarantee the future of the club,” Davidoff said.
The MTA said they are working with the club to make sure the building isn’t damaged. “As we do with other locations, we will closely monitor [construction],” said MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz.
None of the excavation will be done directly in front of the club, he said.
The MTA expects to award a contract for construction by next month.