New York ? Yes, Virginia, there is a New York Sun again.

The new Sun, a weekday broadsheet entering the nation’s most competitive newspaper market, hits newsstands Tuesday as New York’s fourth daily paper  and its first new arrival since 1985.

“I believe there is not only room, but plenty of room in New York for another newspaper,” Seth Lipsky, editor and president of the Sun, said as the paper geared up for its first edition.

“The notion of a city the size and diversity of New York being served by only one broadsheet  good as The New York Times is, and it’s fabulous  is illogical,” he said.

The Times and its tabloid competitors, the Daily News and the New York Post, are the only 21st century survivors out of more than a dozen New York dailies from the 1900s.

One of the casualties was the original New York Sun.

The old Sun was best known for its “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” column  its response to an 1897 letter from an 8-year-old girl asking if there really was a Santa Claus. The paper disappeared in January 1950.

The new Sun, with its primary focus on city coverage, is the spiritual descendant of its namesake  right down to its front page logo, which will incorporate aspects of the old Sun crest.

Lipsky, 55, is the one-time editor of The Forward, a Jewish weekly where he was a 1991 Pulitzer Prize finalist in editorial writing, and a former Wall Street Journal staffer.

His new paper won’t read like a tabloid or the Times  the more conservative Sun will espouse a “center-right, free-market, limited-government, low taxes” approach on its editorial page, Lipsky said.

The paper will have a staff of 40 full-time writers. It will feature writing from an impressive roster of conservative names, including former White House speechwriter Peggy Noonan and former American Spectator editor-in-chief R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.

“There’s room and a need for an additional voice,” Lipksy said of the paper’s conservative bent.

But can it succeed? Lipsky is cautiously optimistic. Others are less confident.

John Morton, a newspaper analyst with the Maryland-based Morton Research Co., called the Sun’s chances of survival “pretty grim.”

“New York is a very difficult environment,” said Morton, calling it “the last city I would choose to start up a newspaper.”

Rather than take on the three entrenched local dailies, Lipsky hopes the Sun will become a popular second choice for regular readers.

“We actually believe we’re not in head-to-head competition with any of the New York papers,” Lipsky said. “We see a kind of opening here that we’ll try to fill.”

The Sun’s investors  including Canadian newspaper baron Conrad Black and several prominent New Yorkers  have deep pockets: estimates of the initial investment run from $20 million to $25 million.

But operating a New York City paper is expensive. New York Newsday, launched in 1985, folded a decade later after losing more than $100 million.

“There’s a lot of people who thought they were rich until they bought a money-losing daily paper,” said Morton, mentioning one-time Post owner Peter Kalikow. He bought the paper in 1988, and filed for personal bankruptcy protection three years later.

More than 60,000 copies of the Sun, with its full-color front page, will be available at newsstands citywide for 50 cents. Lipsky said advertising revenue so far was “about what we expected.”