REMEMBER Fun City?

Remember when voices raised in counterfeit anger were certain to get City Hall’s undivided attention?

No, not the Dinkins years – but way, way back, when John Lindsay was mayor.

There’s a compelling new book out on the period – “The Ungovernable City: John Lindsay and His Struggle to Save New York” (Basic Books), by Vincent J. Cannato.

At 702 fact-packed pages – and with type not much bigger than the baseball boxscores – it’s dense.

But familiarity with the Lindsay era is a prerequisite to true understanding of how New York got to where it was 10 years ago, when City Hall let a murderous riot run unchecked for three long days – mostly for fear of offending the rioters.

Then came Rudy Giuliani, with a radically different governance style.

Giuliani’s initial test came quickly; within two days of his first inauguration, a contrived incident at a Farrakanite mosque in Harlem led to a high-profile collision between the NYPD and Al Sharpton’s corps of well-practiced cop-baiters.

That is to say, between duly constituted civil authority and municipal chaos.

The cops entered the mosque. This, to some, violated a Lindsay-era agreement that deemed Farrakanite places of worship “sensitive locations” – off limits to police officers.

Whether there was such an understanding on Jan. 3, 1994, is open to question.

But, as Cannato writes, one certainly was in effect on April 14, 1972, when an “officer needs assistance” call drew scores of cops to Nation of Islam Mosque No. 7 at 102 E. 116th St.

The officers thought they were rushing to the rescue of a colleague in mortal danger. They “did not know that they were responding to a false call,” writes Cannato.

Moreover, they “entered the mosque, not realizing that they were in a house of worship.” They also were unaware that Lindsay factotums “had previously worked out a secret agreement with Muslim ministers [that] ‘mosques be accorded treatment as sensitive locations by police officers’.”

A melee ensued – during which a police officer, Philip Cardillo, was fatally “shot at point-blank range with the gun pressed against his jacket.”

Cannato then describes how official malfesance and political cowardice conspired to ensure that the shooter would go free; some violent criminals were more equal than other violent criminals in John Lindsay’s New York.

It was all about race, of course, as is much of the contrived social confict in contemporary New York. Suffice it to say that John Lindsay was more patronizing, and more cowardly, on race than most liberals – which is saying something – and that the city is still paying for his sins.

Yes, it got a respite with Rudy Giuliani and his one-law-fits-all approach to politically motivated municipal disorder.

The shouters had reason to believe that a fabricated crisis in 1994, artfully manipulated, would bend the new mayor to their will. It had worked well for 22 years, after all.

But Giuliani was different.

There would be no “sensitive locations” on his watch – and no bargaining with crackpots, demagogues and criminals.

The results speak for themselves, with eloquence.

Now that watch is about to end, as it must.

And the Vandals are at the gates.

Who among those seeking to replace Rudy has the will to resist them? Peter Vallone, probably; Herman Badillo, for sure.

They’re long-shots – Badillo especially. But voters need to remember that Fun City wasn’t really much fun at all.

A wrong choice on Tuesday could bring it all back.

E-mail: mcmanus@nypost.com