Esposito, the highest-ranking uniformed member of the department, lives on a quiet block that residents say is virtually devoid of crime and trouble, other than the occasional rowdy teenager.

Police sources said the cameras — two aimed at his property and one that can rotate and capture images farther up the block — were set up as a precaution and not because the chief had received any legitimate death threats.

Esposito referred questions to the NYPD’s press office. Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said it is the department’s policy not to discuss security matters.

. . .

One high-ranking police source, however, said the cameras in front of Esposito’s home are not among the 505 being placed at a cost of $9.1 million throughout the city to fight crime.

Esposito is highly visible, often seen at the side of Police Commissioner Ray Kelly during news briefings and known to respond at all hours of the day and night to major incidents.

Kelly has a camera outside his apartment door in the Battery Park City building where he lives, and there is a stepped-up police response whenever officers from the First Precinct respond there, regardless of the nature of the call.

It was unclear if any other police officials have cameras outside their homes.

For decades, the Taxi and Limousine Commission has required all cab owners to install the vinyl covers, which unlike cloth seats do not absorb all manner of stain and stink.

But on newer vehicles, which account for roughly 20 percent of the city’s 13,000-cab fleet, the front seats are equipped with sensors to detect the presence and size of passengers in order to determine whether and how forcefully to deploy the air bags in the event of an accident.

And the vinyl seat covers are pulled so tightly over the seat that they may disable these sensors and cause the air bag not to deploy, the city was recently told by a Nissan employee, who was visiting the TLC’s inspection facility earlier this summer.

“Once we were made aware of the potential problem, the TLC responded quickly with a directive to remove the vinyl seat coverings,” TLC spokesman Allan Fromberg said.

Most taxi owners have already complied, but tomorrow, the agency will make the rule change official, Fromberg said.

“I’m not terribly interested in looking at Central Park or the East Side,” said Ned O’Gorman, one of the four tenants who turned up their nose at the offer.

The poet and his cronies had filed suit to stop their landlord, the Church of Latter-Day Saints, from ripping out the walls in their one-bedroom apartments and replacing them with windows.

“Plaintiffs argue that they would be severely and irreparably damaged by the removal of the wall and by the dust, fumes, noise and vibrations,” Judge Michael Stallman wrote.

He signed off on their bid for a preliminary order barring the landlord from doing work on their apartments, finding the changes were purely cosmetic and not a “necessary repair.”

The landlord’s lawyer, Seth Denenberg, said the window installation between the 22nd and 37th floors was part of a massive rehab of 60 W. 66th St., designed to transform the tower into a “premium building.”

When work is finally completed, the plaintiffs’ four units — all on different floors — will be the only ones without the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The four tenants all said they had good reason to block the construction.

Abraham Cherney is 87 and gets kidney dialysis several times a week.

Former model and dancer Laima Drobavicius has severe allergies, and both said they would “suffer potentially life threatening health consequences” if forced to stay in their apartments during construction.

Approximately 130,000 riders a week board buses without dipping MetroCards, or plunking change into fare boxes, according to new transit data, suggesting the cash-strapped agency is losing millions of dollars annually.

“We’ve identified the worst routes, including the worst bus stops or hot spots,” said Joseph Smith, NYC Transit vice president in charge of buses.

Smith said he hoped the crackdown would start in a week or two. An NYPD spokesman, however, said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has yet to sign off on a final plan. The two sides are in talks about how the Metropolitan Transportation Authority could defray costs.

Fare-beaters enter via rear bus doors that are opened by exiting passengers or by helpful riders on board. Some simply saunter past the driver and fare box up front. To reduce the risk of being assaulted, drivers are instructed not to confront or accost fare-beaters.

Above-ground fare-beating is most prevalent on 10 routes in Brooklyn and the Bronx, according to NYC Transit. The worst is the B46 in Brooklyn where drivers have reported “theft of service” at a rate of about 4,000 a week. The route runs the length of the borough, between Williamsburg and Marine Park, through Crown Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant and East Flatbush and Flatlands.

The report conducted by NYU adjunct professor John Tepper Marlin shows that if the Yankees snag at least a wild-card berth, a first-round appearance could fill the coffers of bars, restaurants and other businesses across the city with $26 million.

Marlin, a former number-crunching chief economist for three former city comptrollers, said the Bronx Bombers would need to make the playoffs every year if the city hopes to reap any economic benefits, a feat many fans and businesses have taken as a given since 1995.