Martin Scorsese loves his "Mean Streets" — and he doesn't want them messed up by shiny condo towers or pricy boutique hotels.

The legendary director of gritty Big Apple films like "Gangs of New York" and "Taxi Driver" is going to war over new development along the Bowery. He's terrified it will turn his beloved old neighborhood into a bland suburban shopping mall.

"I urge you to insure that the Bowery remains preserved and intact so its history continues to influence and inspire the upcoming artists of tomorrow," the 70-year-old Academy Award winner wrote in a March 13 letter to the city's planning board.

Scorsese — who was raised in Little Italy — would prefer it if the Bowery still resembled the set of one of his grim, blood-soaked movies, instead of the forest of high-rises it is becoming.

"Having grown up on Elizabeth Street, the neighborhood and residents of the Bowery became clear catalysts for turning me into a storyteller," he wrote to the board. "Whether it's Mean Streets or Gangs of New York, the influence of the Bowery — the grittiness, the ambience, the vivid atmosphere — is apparent."

Scorsese isn't the only old resident of the area raging like a bull over the changes to the Lower East Side, where Italian food shops have been replaced by $750-a-night hotels.

"Marty's right. Leave it the way it is," said Moe Albanese, owner of the butcher shop Albanese Meats & Poultry on Elizabeth Street.

"The neighborhood is very trendy now. It used to be kids playing and families."

The Bowery Alliance of Neighbors has created a plan to preserve the onetime "Skid Row," which winds through Chinatown, Little Italy, Nolita, SoHo and the East Village by limiting new buildings to a height of 85 feet on both sides of the Bowery.

Department of City Planning spokeswoman Rachaele Raynoff told The Post, in response to the Scorsese letter: "We have heard the community's concerns about this corridor and have taken a very close look at the built character, uses and the community's plans."

By Sabrina Ford and Cynthia R. Fagen / The New York Post