Fatal bus-hit vic king of kitsch

THE 73-YEAR-OLD MAN tragically mowed down by a tour bus on the Upper West Side Friday was Manhattan’s king of 20th-century kitsch who almost had a television show on American pop culture, friends said.

“It would have been sort of like an “Antiques Roadshow” of pop culture, Jeff Sewald, 52, said of the program his longtime friend Alexander Shear had pitched to local networks. “He was a completely unique person. He was a consummate antiquer. He collected everything from the early 20th century.”

Shear, whose widespread collection was highlighted in the New Yorker and People magazines, was the city’s go-to guy for artifacts from the last century.

He was killed at about 8:15 p.m. Friday when he was hit and dragged by a Shafer Tour bus that turned down Broadway onto W. 96th St.

Horrified witnesses chased after the bus and flagged down the driver, who stopped near Amsterdam Ave.

“I didn’t know. I didn’t see him!” the panic-stricken driver told detectives, according to witness Choral Martin, 23.

No arrests have been made and no summonses were issued to the driver, cops said.

Friends believe the Upper West Side senior was going to an area restaurant for dinner when he was killed.

The vivacious father of two developed products for JC Penney and worked at tourist booths at the World Trade Center. Sewald said. But his true passion was antiquing.

Shear’s 20th-century collection was enormous and contained everything from toys and board games to kitchenware.

“He had a lot of energy for life,” recalled another friend, Stephanie Easton, 65. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”