Opinion

Ride of the Yankees

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They occupy two of the city’s most fashionable addresses, one on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, one in The Bronx.

The person who calls Gracie Mansion home may be the host of the town, occasionally the toast of the town, always the face and voice and soul of the boroughs. But the mayor of New York City has never been alone in shaping the attitude of the city, lending swagger to its gait and certainty to its conviction. For damn near a century, that burden — and, often, the resulting exaltation — has been shared by the men who hang their shingles outside Yankee Stadium.

Now, both institutions face change and flux, and more than a speck of unrest after 20 years of mostly uninterrupted, if not unprecedented, dominance.

Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg have commanded a city that is safer, healthier, cleaner and more prosperous than at any time in recent memory. Is it a coincidence that this era dovetailed with a period of excellence unmatched in the long, deep, storied history of the Yankees? Since Giuliani took office on Jan. 1, 1994, the Yankees have qualified for the postseason 16 times, captured seven American League pennants and won the World Series five times.

The simple answer: No. It is not.

In truth, the Yankees and the mayor’s office have a long history of co-sponsoring the city’s mental, spiritual and societal health, from the moment “Red Mike” Hylan lorded over the first three Yankees pennants in 1921, ’22 and ’23. Hylan was an old-school Tammany soldier, a machine man under whose watch the Yankees won the first of their 27 championships in 1923, ushering in their own kind of dynasty.

Now, you can call it happenstance, a wonderful quirk of history, but from that moment forward the Yankees have always thrived as the city has thrived, have always found their destinies tied — for better, for worse, for everything in between — with the mayor’s, an inescapable marriage of City Hall and emerald cathedral, the dueling clubhouse games of hardscrabble baseball and hardball politics.

Can it really be an accident that the first Yankees teams that truly captured the nation’s attention, the Murderers’ Row teams of 1927 and ’28, came during the reign of Jimmy Walker, Beau James, Gentleman Jimmy, who may not have been the best man who ever sat behind the mayor’s desk but certainly was its most glamorous, a man of panache and elan perfectly suited for his times — and for that team?

Can it really be a fluke that during Fiorello La Guardia’s first 10 years in office the Yankees won seven pennants and six World Series, the Little Flower breaking up the corrupt institutions that had been choking the city while all around the American League came cries of “Break up the Yankees”? Or that Robert Wagner’s 12 years yielded nine pennants and four titles?

But the real test is this: the Yankees only started to enter decline in 1965, the same year John V. Lindsay was sworn in. Under Lindsay the city devolved into a graffiti-ridden, crime-infested graphic novel, and perhaps his greatest sin was this: Facing re-election in 1969, he aligned himself closely and comically with the Miracle Mets. Now, understand, an expansion baseball team in its eighth year of existence, having never finished higher than ninth place, is entitled to the label of “underdog” — even a team that calls New York City home.

But a mayor so willing to cast himself as an upstart little guy?

That is inexcusable. Unforgiveable, even.

Of course, like everything associated with those Amazin’ Mets, he won, he got his four more years, but Lindsay’s career was in descent. He was never the same, and neither were the Yankees, who would go 15 years between titles and would not win another until a few weeks before the election of Ed Koch — and again, it needs to be asked: was that an accident, too?

Not surprisingly, the last period of Yankees lethargy matches, exactly, the four years of David Dinkins — in his first three years, the Yankees lost 95, 91 and 86 games and finished in last place for only the fourth time in their history — which was also the last time New York even remotely doubted its status as the nation’s nervous system. It took Giuliani’s election to fix both the city and its signature baseball team — and it’s unclear which gives him more satisfaction.

Now?

There will be a new mayor sworn in next New Year’s Day, and of the available candidates it is difficult to imagine any approaching the larger-than-life legacies of Giuliani and Bloomberg. And there is already a new face atop the corporate flow chart at Yankee Stadium, Hal Steinbrenner, a man every bit as smart as his late father, possessing only a fraction of the old man’s grandiosity.

You feel it, don’t you? That fear that this is the end of an era. That the city — and the Yankees — may never be this good again.

Already Steinbrenner has mirrored Bloomberg’s affinity for weaning the city off its most unappetizing indulgences, and his insistence on whittling the Yankees’ payroll under $200 million has had the same effect as the mayor’s campaign to rid the city of smoke, soft drinks and junk food: In your heart, you know it’s all probably for the best.

But your heart lives in New York City. And so you are also unapologetic in your desire to light up a fat cigar in a bar, guzzle a Big Gulp and pine for an All-Star at every position.

Perhaps this really is only temporary. Perhaps the next mayor really is another icon-in-waiting, a rock star in business dress, and maybe the Yankees’ “austerity plan” really is only a fleeting thing. The Yankees, after all, always seem better off when the right person is in charge. And we don’t mean Joe Girardi.

Mike Vaccaro is a sports columnist for The Post

michael.vaccaro@nypost.com