New York ? Bryant Park isn’t just for the birds and fashionistas and midtown Manhattanites on lunch breaks anymore. Now there’s something for the children.

An aqua-colored, 22-foot French-style carousel, with 10 horses, a rabbit, a frog, a deer and a cat and adorned with cherubs made its inaugural run in mid-June, much to the delight of dozens of children and their parents.

The newly opened carousel in Bryant Park in Manhattan is done in classic form with French influence and has 14 animals.

“This is just great,” says Gretchen Ryan, of Rye, N.Y., whose children Shay, 3, and Finn, 20 months, were among the first riders of the merry-go-round. “I used to come here for lunch every day, but there was never anything for kids. This makes the park that much better.”

“Happy kids, happy adults … what’s not to like?” says Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe. “There is no better sound than the sound of happy kids playing.”

But how can a carousel smack in the middle of a business district succeed?

“We’re pretty confident that the kids will find it,” says Dan Biederman, executive director of the Bryant Park Restoration Corp. “Hey, its our first day and we’re already doing great business.”

At $1.50 a ride, maybe he’s right.

The carousel’s design is entirely original and was built over six months by the Fabricon Carousel Co. at its factory in Brooklyn. It can seat 18 riders at a time, and plays French music, such as “La Vie en Rose,” on the three-minute ride.

“We tried to model it after the park,” says Marvin Sylvor, owner of Fabricon. The park lies directly west of the Beaux Arts central branch of the New York Public Library.

The carousel joins six others in the city, and is only one of five in city parks, Benepe says.

“But this is the newest maybe the most beautiful and certainly in the busiest spot in the city,” he says, referring to nearby Times Square.

But is the carousel really just for kids?

“Of course not,” Ryan says. “This will be great for dates, too.”

Biederman says if there is the demand, the ride will stay open as late as 11 p.m.