VECEPIA “Vee” Towery, the low-profile office manager from Hayward, Calif., snagged the $1 million prize on “Survivor 4” last night.

Towery’s win on Survivor: Marquesas was revealed thousands of miles from the remote Tahitian island of Nuku Hiva, where the show was filmed five months ago – it was telecast live from Central Park.

Producers transformed the Wollman Rink into a “Survivor” stadium and packed it with over 2,000 rowdy Survivor fanatics.

After the two-hour telecast, Rosie O’Donnell hosted a one-hour “Survival 4” cast reunion.

Towery, known to her fellow castaways as a deep thinker, fell to her knees when she learned she had narrowly edged out Nelah “Sweet Pea” Dennis, a 21-year-old psychology student from Heber City, Utah, for the title of sole Survivor.

It was the first time the popular reality-show series had women as the two finalists. The vote was 4-3.

After the telecast, Towery said she was particularly proud to be the first black contestant to win.

She said she came prepared with a parting speech, noting, “It’s important to be humble, but I had the feeling God would lead me [to victory], and he did.”

O’Donnell and the 15 losing castaways serenaded the winner with a Survivorized version of the theme from “Gilligan’s Island.”

Towery, an Oregon native and Air Force veteran, is 36 and recently married.

Paschal “Pappy” English, the unflappable 58-year-old Georgia judge considered by many to be the likely winner, was bumped early in the first hour of the telecast when he pulled the wrong-colored stone from a grab-bag.

Next out was Kathy Vavrick-O’Brien, a divorced 47-year-old real estate agent from Burlington, Vt.

The show’s executive producer, Mark Burnett, said he had been thinking about doing a series finale in New York since “Survivor 2.”

“We felt that after 9/11, this would be a show of solidarity with the city,” he said. “We figured, let’s not just go to New York, let’s make an event out of it.”