A day after hosting a joyous 7th birthday party for his daughter, a veteran New York City cop was killed by a wrong-way drunk driver in a horrific pre-dawn crash, authorities said today.

Off-duty Officer Andre Menzies, 35, was driving from his job as a housing officer in Queens just after midnight when a Chevy van heading the wrong way on the Northern State Parkway in Dix Hills, LI, slammed into Menzies’ Honda head-on, killing the instantly, police said.

The van’s driver, Michael Bowen, 50, of Brooklyn was arrested and charged with DWI and reckless driving, after failing a field sobriety test, according to police. The suspect had a blood-alcohol level of .25 — more than three times the legal limit, a police source said.

Menzies, a father of five, was assigned to PSA 9. A North Babylon resident, he was a nine-year NYPD veteran.

“He was a happy, loving family man,’’ Menzies’ dad, Robert, told The Post yesterday.

The grieving father recounted how, on Saturday, Andre had thrown a roller-skating birthday bash for 7-year-old daughter Sky, who has suffered through several surgeries for an intestinal defect.

“Everything he did, he did for his wife and his children,’’ Robert Menzies said.

Andre leaves a wife, Nicole, and four other kids, ages 3 to 14.

Robert said his son — whose first toy as a child was a tiny model police motorcycle — was an avid basketball player who was a ball boy at St. John’s University and played for several different New York colleges before deciding to become a cop.

Bowen was arraigned in Suffolk County district court.

He pleaded not guilty and was ordered held on $350,000 cash bail and $500,000 bond. He also was ordered to surrender his passport.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly offered condolences from the NYPD, noting that Menzies’ “young children are left without a father as a result of this senseless accident.”