(Daniel/INFphoto.com)
Thirty years after John Lennon was fatally shot outside The Dakota, the legendary building suffered a disturbing security breach that put Yoko Ono in harm’s way, sources said yesterday.
A Korean tourist who wanted to see the Beatle’s old home was busted after easily getting inside the Upper West Side building and scaring Ono when he bumped into her on an elevator.
Sungno Kim, 24, a Beatles fan, somehow slipped through The Dakota’s service entrance — where a guard is normally stationed — on Jan. 12 and rode a service elevator to the roof.
He took a few snapshots of the city and went back down in a passenger elevator, where he encountered Ono.
“The elevator stopped on her floor. She got on. There was no interaction,” a building insider said.
“It was totally coincidental.”
Ono declined to discuss the disturbing run-in, except to tell The Post, “I’m fine now.”
Still, residents at the building — home to such celebs as Lauren Bacall, Rex Reed, Roberta Flack, Connie Chung and Maury Povich — were furious.
“They may fire the managing agent,” the insider said, adding that guards fear for their jobs. “They are all freaking out — as they should be.”
“The whole reason they have heightened security there, more than any other building, is because of [Ono and the late Lennon],” said another building source.
Kim said he didn’t mean to worry Ono, saying he went to the building at 1 W. 72nd St. after reading about it in a guidebook.
Kim was intrigued to learn it was once home to Lennon, who was killed by Mark David Chapman outside the building on Dec. 8, 1980.
“I’m a Beatles fan. I went to see where John Lennon lived,” Kim said. He claimed he didn’t recognize Ono.
Sources said she went to a concierge and reported a strange man in the building. Security had already spotted Kim on cameras and detained him after he left the elevator.
Kim, a graphic-design student, was arrested for trespassing.
A spokesman for the building operator, Douglas Elliman Property Management, declined to comment.
Other residents doubted Kim’s story, noting that the elevator doesn’t go to the roof and that even tenants don’t have access to it. “I can’t believe it. This is very strange,” one resident said.
Kim, meanwhile, was slapped with six hours of community service, which he said he has already served.
Additional reporting by Lachlan Cartwright, Jennifer Gould Keil and Kieran Crowley