On Quitting While You’re Ahead, Or, This Guy Has Balls The Size Of . . . Well, You Know

After abandoning the piece at Bowling Green and using the site as his private showroom, Charging Bull sculptor Arturo DiModica now wants to sue businesses who use the image for advertising:

Arturo Di Modica is seeing red, accusing Wal-Mart, North Fork Bank and seven smaller concerns of horning in on the popularity of the 7,000-pound, bronze “Charging Bull,” which stands in Bowling Green Park.

In a suit filed in Manhattan federal court, Di Modica said Wal-Mart was selling photos of “Charging Bull” without his permission.

And North Fork Bank, based in Melville, L.I., is using the sculpture in a national advertising campaign — also without his permission, he says.

“It must stop,” an angry Di Modica told The Post yesterday.

“I’m tired of seeing all this work done. It’s bad for my career. What they’re selling is not a good representation of my work. It’s destroying my image.

“If they want to sell it, they must buy it from me. I see people making money off my work.”

Di Modica, who spent two years and $350,000 of his own money creating the 16-foot-long bull, trucked it to the entrance of the New York Stock Exchange in December 1989.

He said it was a Christmas gift to the people of New York, but the cops said it was illegal.

They seized it, but after a public outcry, the Parks Department installed it in Bowling Green Park.

. . .

Di Modica said he was inspired to create the larger-than-life bull as a symbol of hope after the 1987 stock market collapse. The artist, who copyrighted the bull in 1998, makes money from the authorized use of the sculpture’s image in movies and advertising.

If Wal-Mart had a sense of humor, they would buy the sculpture and have DiModica put their name on the plaque the artist once proposed.

Location Scout: Bowling Green.