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H’WOOD DUO THE BEST AND WORST THING FOR BROOKLYN

UNTIL the end, we had a love-hate thing for Heath.

When Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams became my neighbors, Brownstone Brooklyn was breathless. And stupid. This was bigger than Starbucks.

Hollywood had arrived.

In a neighborhood that previously was best known for its churches and Italian block-watchers, an area we loved for its anonymity, safety and fresh mozzarella, we suddenly had royalty.

In Brooklyn, our kids still jump rope on the sidewalk in summer, and stoop-sitting has been elevated from an early form of air-conditioning into a full-blown method of entertainment. Heath and Michelle noticed this, too.

They paid $3.5 million for a four-story townhouse in Boerum Hill, complete with a three-car garage, barely five blocks from my house. Then they sank a bunch more into fixing the place up.

And all of a sudden, it was all about Heath, Heath, Heath. He was spotted on the playground with Matilda! He was smoking outside a Smith Street bar!

And the celebs who followed, from Emily Mortimer to Maggie Gyllenhaal and Keri Russell, helped turn our property values, already a source of pride, into a running farce.

Brooklyn grew expensive, but also generic. Our old haunts were chased out by the rents to make way for sushi bars. And now, we had paparazzi to contend with.

We loved it. We hated it. We dealt with it. Brooklyn was turning into Manhattan.

But Heath had a way of living in the neighborhood, not just simply hanging his skateboard here. Just yesterday, I walked randomly into the CVS pharmacy, where a clerk startled me by reporting, unasked, that he once stopped in to buy the decongestant pseudoephedrine, a drug that has the habit of keeping me up all night.

“I wouldn’t even have noticed him except he had to show me ID,” she gushed. And I almost joked, ‘Like the actor.’ But it was him.”

He lived among us. A good thing sometimes. But Heath and Michelle, who did more for the value of real estate than off-street parking, lent their clout to an organization dedicated to running the planned Nets basketball arena out of Brooklyn, a project I believe will benefit the borough.

Maybe it was their liberal guilt. Maybe they just wanted people to like them.

We may never know.

Heath moved out of Brooklyn this past summer for soulless Manhattan. It was clear that he’d changed.

And now, he’s checked out forever, gone in what appears a haze of pills and depression.

A fabulous talent, gone too young.

We never really knew you, neighbor.

andrea.peyser@nypost.com