New Yorkers embrace Guardian Angels and founder Curtis Sliwa as the anti-crime crusaders

New Yorkers on Monday embraced the Guardian Angels and founder Curtis Sliwa as the anti-crime crusaders resumed patrols of the troubled city subway system for the first time since 2020.

Sliwa, a former Republican mayoral candidate, was flipping burgers as night manager at a Bronx McDonald’s when he founded the group in 1979 amid horrific subway violence at the time.

Once topping off with thousands of members worldwide, the Guardian Angels have since returned to the underground several times — but not since the last patrols nearly 15 years ago.

This weekend Sliwa announced that he was taking his volunteers back into the transit system following the horrifying arson death of a homeless woman on an F train in Brooklyn earlier this month.

NYPD stats show that over the past 28 days alone there were 49 felony assaults reported in the system, a jump of about 40% over the same period last year.

The recent subway arson slaying brought the number of murders in the city subway system to 10 this year — double the number of murders in 2023 and matching a 25-year high reached in 2022, city statistics show.

Those numbers are in contrast to a lengthy stretch between 1997 and 2019 that never saw more than five transit slayings.

As of Sunday, there were 573 felony assaults in the system so far this year, matching the 572 over the same period last year.

The new patrols consist of three Guardian Angels each and will run around the clock on four-hour shifts, the group said, with the F line — site of the horrific arson attack — one of the main focuses.

Nonetheless, a rep for Mayor Eric Adams on Monday maintained that cops have put a dent in crime in the city, and suggested that the Guardian Angels’ new patrols are little more than “theatrics.” Adams defeated Sliwa in the 2021 mayoral race.

“The mayor surged 1,000 police officers per day into the subways, has brought down overall crime, and transit crime, delivering real action — not theatrics — but he knows there’s still more work to be done,” City Hall press secretary Kayla Mamelak said in an email.

“Unlike others who only seek attention with meaningless stunts, Mayor Adams remains focused on real solutions.”