Who knew it was legal for a woman to walk around with her breasts exposed in New York?

Well, one woman did – and a cop didn’t – and now she has forced the city to fork over a $29,000 legal set tlement for ille gally busting her when she law fully bared her bosom and went for a stroll two years ago.

Jill Coc caro, a 27-year-old East Village artist who now goes by the name Phoenix Fee ley, went au naturel on Aug. 4, 2005, when she pulled down the front of her paint er’s jumpsuit dur ing an art-show promotion to cool off.

In 1992 a state appeals court ruled that if men could expose their chests in public women could not be pun ished for doing the same.

In 2003, high-profile law yer Ron Kuby had used the law change to win a $10,000 settlement from the city for a model who’d been busted wearing a thong and body paint to the Coney Island Mer maid Parade.

But that didn’t stop a cop, who spotted Fee ley at about 1:30 a.m. strolling topless on Delancey Street, telling her to cover up.

When Feeley refused – informing the officer she had a legal right to be naked to the waist, just like a man – the of ficer took her into cus tody for indecent exposure.

“I did not do anything to anyone on that street, I did not harm anyone,” she recalled. “I was so not resisting arrest.”

But Feeley spent 12 hours in custody before the officer told her the District Attorney’s Office had declined to press charges.

While she was detained, Feeley claims, an officer yanked her from a patrol car by her hair, that she was taken to Bellevue Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and that cops refused to help her repair her by-then badly ripped jumpsuit. “I was asking not to walk around in my underwear and they were not helping me with that,” she said. “By the end of the night I walked out with my shirt off and my pants on.”

“The thing the cop did not seem to understand, and what’s so problematic, was that it was Phoenix who would decide what parts of her body would be exposed,” said her attorney, Jeffrey Rothman.

The arrest came a day before her young daughter’s birthday and caused Feeley to miss a Family Court appearance involving her ex-husband.

Feeley said she’s gone bare-breasted before – after running the 2004 New York City marathon – without cops bothering her.

“I’ve always just felt that was something natural,” Feeley said of baring her breasts. “I’ve kind of always done it out of practicality.”

She sued the city and the arresting officers last October. The city agreed to settle, without admitting any fault, on June 4.

“I felt like I deserved it,” Feeley said.

kathianne.boniello@nypost.com