A tourist center in a borough no one wants to visit is closing — and the biggest shock is that it was ever opened in the first place.

Locals and sources said no one has set foot in the Redbird Tourist Information Center in Queens since it opened its doors to tumbleweeds in 2008.

“I’ve never seen anyone going in there,” said Helen Wolff, 81, a retired accountant who has walked past the Kew Gardens center ­every day since its ballyhooed opening. “I watch people go up the stairs and walk around and come back down.”

The center is housed inside a historic 1950s-era Redbird subway car, which was moved to the site in 2005 and, thanks to former Borough President Helen Marshall, underwent a $500,000 rehab to become the place that time — and tourists — forgot.

“The place is a joke. Nobody goes there, but there’s a taxpayer-funded salary sitting there all day,” one Queens governmental source told The Post.

And it’s no wonder locals are clueless about the center — there isn’t even a sign outside announcing its presence. Instead, officials apparently hoped that tourists popping by Queens Criminal Court — which is close by — would flock to the curious red subway car. “It was such a bad idea to put a tourism center next to a criminal court, where tourists never go,” the source added.

Even the center’s lone staffer, Roxanne Solarsh, said visitors come to the area only because they have to — for jury duty.

“Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who go to the court,” ­Solarsh told The Post. “We get a lot of people from jury duty.”

She said the center, which is open only four hours each weekday, could be closed by Monday.

Borough President Melinda Katz, who sources said ordered the closing, did not immediately return requests for comment.

Locals said they never saw any visitors inside the center.

“I never went in there because I thought it was there just for display . . . I see people taking pictures outside but not going in,” said Ronit Samson, 45.

The center is the last of the city’s 714 Redbird cars, and its fate is still unknown. The other cars were sunk at sea off the East Coast to create artificial reefs.

“I am disappointed,” Solarsh said. “I think they are going to be developing something new, and that will take time.”