STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – It was a robbery to dye for.

Two gunmen wearing ski masks robbed the old Westerleigh Savings and Loan Association Bank in Grasmere on Feb. 15, 1983.

But the bandits, dubbed “the gang that couldn’t shoot straight” by cops, left a trail a mile wide that led to their capture just an hour after the heist.

‘I’LL BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF’

The two robbers entered the bank at 1100 Hylan Blvd. at around 12:15 p.m., one toting a 12-gague sawed-off shotgun, the other a .22-caliber revolver.

The man with the revolver vaulted over the bank counter and told the tellers to keep quiet or else.

“If you press the buttons, I’ll blow your head off,” he reportedly said.

As the second robber stood by the door and covered bank employees with his shotgun, the first crook rifled through the bank’s cash drawers and took bundles of money, totaling about $7,000. He leapt back across the counter and both bandits fled the bank.

That’s where their troubles started, cops said.

Within seconds, as the pair fled toward a getaway car that was parked around the block on Kensington Avenue, a dye-filled decoy money packet exploded.

The thieves and their ill-gotten loot were instantly covered by powered red dye and thousands of dollars in loose $5, $10, $20 and $50 bills blew into the air.

“There were witnesses all over the place,” Sgt. Richard Bracken of the Crimes Against Persons Squad told the Advance.

The comedy of errors didn’t end there.

‘THEY WERE HAVING A BAD DAY’

The crooks meant to flee to a brown Oldsmobile, but cops said that the getaway car failed to start.

With the two dropping bills as they fled on foot, police said they had little trouble following the trail of stained money to an apartment building at 121 Norway Ave., South Beach.

Before cops arrived, one of the crooks had stumbled while entering the building, spilling the money he was carrying, the Advance reported. As he stooped to pick up the errant cash, he accidentally discharged the shotgun he was carrying. Witnesses reported the incident to police.

Police converged on the building but didn’t know which apartment the men had entered. But during a search, an officer noticed a red-stained bill protruding from underneath the door of apartment 3-C.

“This was the gang that couldn’t shoot straight,” Bracken told the Advance at the time. “They were having a bad day.”

Police found the two suspects counting money on a bed inside the apartment. Both the would-be robbers and the cash were covered with red dye. A small amount of red-stained money had also been found in the failed getaway car.

Police recovered about $2,600 of stolen loot in the apartment. Another $4,000 was recovered by passers-by on Kensington Avenue.

‘MONEY HITTING THE WINDSHIELD’

Brian Conroy, 4, and his mom, Kathleen, of Rosebank, were among the first to spot the free-floating cash. They were driving home after she’d picked the youngster up at the Marshall School in South Beach.

Kathleen Conroy had just made a right turn onto Kensington, about a block from the bank, “when my son and I began to see all this money hitting the windshield,” she said. “It was unreal.”

They got out of the car and saw money littering the roadway. Young Brian grabbed his empty lunchbox “and we began to stuff as many bills as we could into it,” his mom said.

Cops in the neighborhood told them that the bank had been robbed.

“We only wanted to return the money to the proper owners,” said Conroy, a 31-year old secretary and mother of two. “I’m so glad that it was so close by.”

The youngster smilingly handed his cash-stuffed lunchbox to a bank official, who praised the child for his “good work.” The bank was then closed to the public for several hours as police investigated the robbery.

People mill about outside closed Westerleigh Savings and Loan Association Bank on Hylan Boulevard in Grasmere after it was robbed on Feb. 15, 1983. (Tony Dugal/Staten Island Advance)

Queens resident Edward S. Ruiz, 25, was the only customer inside the bank at the time of the heist.

“Those guys looked like they were dressed to go to a funeral,” he said of the robbers, “and the masks concealed their faces so you couldn’t really tell what they looked like.”

He said that he and the bank workers “were in a state of shock” as the robbery rapidly unfolded.

“It happened so fast,” Ruiz said, “and no shots were fired. Once they got what they were after, they fled the building.”

Another witness, Edward Smith, said he spotted a bundle of stained money in the road and returned it to the police.

“Most of the money was flying around loose, but I was able to retrieve one pile intact,” he said.

Authorities at the time said they did not know how much money might have been picked up by passers-by and not returned.

“That money is worthless as far as spending any of it goes,” said one officer at the scene.

PLEADING GUILTY

Arrested were Thomas Gallagher, 35, and Craig Whiteley, 28, both residents of St. Mary’s Avenue in Rosebank. Gallagher was identified as the robber who took the money from the cash drawers, the Advance reported, while Whiteley wielded the shotgun.

The two men pleaded guilty to the robbery on May 9, 1983. Gallagher, as a second-felony offender, was sentenced to a term of 7-and-a-half to 15 years in prison, while Whiteley received a sentence of four to 12 years.

MORE STATEN ISLAND CRIME STORIES FROM TOM WROBLESKI

Crooks take hostages at deli, rob Wells Fargo armored truck of $2.25M in biggest heist in Staten Island history in 1978

Broad daylight heist at Macy’s at Staten Island Mall nets robbers $815Gs in 1985

Mobster ‘Fat Pete’ Chiodo is shot 12 times but lives as Mafia assassination goes awry on Staten Island in 1991