Tappan Zee Forever

Residents in the city’s northern suburbs are up in arms over the dead-of-night move that robbed them of a local landmark’s historic and distinctive name. Nearly 55,000 people have signed a petition asking the Legislature to restore the name Tappan Zee to the new bridge now named for Gov. Cuomo’s father and predecessor, Mario Cuomo.

They have a point. Not least because, as the petition notes, “It sounds cool to say, ‘I’m taking the Tappan Zee.’ It does not sound cool to say, ‘I’m taking the Cuomo.’ ”

(Or, given its rush-hour traffic, meandering on the Mario.)

Plus, as activists also point out, the original name honored the region’s founding settlers, the Tappan Indians and the Dutch.

But the real outrage is over the way the renaming was done: at 1 a.m., just hours before the close of the legislative session, and stuck in the middle of a completely unrelated 72page bill. All without the slightest bit of pub- lic input. And not even named for a figure from the area near the bridge but for a guy from Queens.

The old span, by the way, also officially carried the name of former Gov. Malcolm Wilson, a Republican, and the petition organizer is also a Republican. So Cuomo dismisses the criticism as “partisan.” But that’s silly.

True, as we’ve noted before, given the mysterious creative financing used to build the new $3.9 billion bridge, maybe naming it after Mario Cuomo, who once balanced a budget by selling off an upstate prison and then leasing it back, isn’t so inappropriate.

But if naming the bridge for his late father was such a popular move, Cuomo wouldn’t have had to sneak it through the Legislature while no one was looking.

Here’s the bottom line: The Tappan Zee Bridge is one of New York’s most unique and recognizable names — an institution filled with history and meaning. What a shame to lose it just to honor another pol.