It’s a miracle on 51st Street.
A 3-year-old boy reported missing in Florida two days ago was found safe and sound last night – inside St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
The adorable child, Nathaniel Fons – who had been the subject of a frantic Amber Alert out of Flagler County – was in a car that mysteriously pulled up in front of the church around 6 p.m., police sources said.
He was taken out of the vehicle by a woman who then walked him inside and told a security guard that she needed to see a priest, the sources said.
The guard told the woman she had to go to the rectory.
The jittery woman then stuffed a piece of paper in the boy’s pocket and fled. The boy pulled out the note and gave it to the guard.
It had the name of a Florida detective and his phone number. The guard called the cop and the NYPD.
The Florida officer then faxed over a photo of the missing boy – and Fons’ identity was confirmed.
“It’s been an emotional roller coaster these past two days,” the tot’s overjoyed grandfather, Donald Fons, told The Post from his Florida home last night.
Struggling to choke back tears, Fons, 57, described how he and his wife raised Nathan until the child’s mom and their son, the boy’s dad, fled with him in August.
“It was total heartbreak, a total empty feeling when they left,” the emotional granddad recalled.
Fons said his son was jailed two months ago on an arrest warrant for a vehicle break-in, and he and his wife heated up their custody bid for the child last week – likely prompting Nathan’s troubled mom, Erin Comeau, 26, to launch the chain of events that led to the boy’s frightening disappearance.
Florida cops say Comeau was traveling with her young son, 21-year-old transient Christopher Michael Brandstetter-Howell and another couple, Eleanor Black, 29, and William Scott, 32, and their two daughters outside Daytona on Sunday night when she was nabbed for passing a $100 counterfeit bill trying to pay a $77 gas charge.
At the time, Comeau and Nathan were with Brandstetter-Howell in an RV reported stolen from New York. The other couple and their two kids were in a Chevy Suburban. ÿ
When she was arrested, Comeau told cops to allow Black – who Fons said he believes is Comeau’s half-sister – and Scott to take Nathan, and couple was allowed to leave with him and their daughters.
The SUV they were traveling in was later found abandoned in a hotel parking lot. An Amber Alert was then issued for Nathan.
“It was just terrifying,” Donald Fons said. “We found out he was missing Monday morning. … We told [police], ‘We have no idea who these people are.’
“The biggest fear was if someone tried to pull them over and if they were armed or gave chase … anything could have happened,” said Fons, a former sheriff.
He said police had been tracking the couple’s cell phone pings as they made their way to New York.
As for his “very friendly, very playful” grandson being dropped off at St. Patrick’s, Fons said, “A church isn’t too bad.
“To tell the truth, I don’t give a darn where he was dropped off, as long as he’s safe.”
The child was taken to New York Hospital but found to be in good health, sources said. He was placed with Children’s Protective Services for the time being.
Meanwhile, NYPD detectives last night were scouring video at and around the church for clues to the car, which has Florida plates.
“Thank goodness the people knew enough that St. Patrick’s is a place that a child can be taken care of and be safe,” said New York Archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling. “It’s such a place that they have confidence that the people and a priest would do the right thing.”