Telly Savalas (pictured on the cover on...

Telly Savalas (pictured on the cover on location in New York) is walking across East 28th Street, with that head-down, don’t-mess-with-me look New Yorkers wear like overcoats. He has just emerged, his familiar bald head announcing his arrival, from an unmarked police car. He gives the door a tired shove. As it slams shut, he swings around mechanically and heads across the street.

He repeats this tedious scene several times for the camera, slowly hoisting his stocky, 64-year-old barrel-chested frame in and out of the car. At times, he seems as if he’s sleepwalking.

On the fringes of this recent early-morning shoot in Manhattan, meanwhile, between Third and Lexington avenues, dozens of normally blase, unconcerned Manhattanites are doing double takes.

Before long, they’re hailing Savalas like a cab.

“Hey, Kojak,” the first of many will beckon.

“Hey, hello, sweetheart,” says Savalas reflexively, not even looking around to see who’s calling.

Though it’s been more than a decade since “Kojak” (which ran on CBS from 1973-78) was on network television, Lt. Theo Kojak never left town, thanks to syndication.

And now, as is apparently a pleasant surprise to the people on the streets of New York, “Kojak” is back. Beginning Saturday at 9 p.m., the cynical, lollipop-licking cop who made the phrase “Who loves ya, baby?” a nationwide refrain returns in a series of two-hour dramas that will be part of the “The ABC Saturday Mystery” wheel. (“Kojak” will alternate in the time slot with three other series: “Columbo” with Peter Falk, “B.L. Stryker” with Burt Reynolds and “Christine Cromwell” with Jaclyn Smith.)

During a break in filming, Savalas pulls up a director’s chair in the middle of the street as if it were his living room and, with a touch of world-weary indifference, talks about Kojak, “the easiest role I ever played.”

“All I do is play Telly and I give him the name of Kojak,” says Savalas, who won an Emmy for the role.

Not more than a minute or two will pass, however, before one and then another fan will approach Savalas for an autograph.

Seeking refuge, he moves to his trailer, but that slows few if any of his fans down. People begin to shout and wave from the street when they spy him through the open blinds.

Yes, New York loves Kojak, who will return as the promoted Inspector Kojak and will be teamed with a new sidekick, a black detective named Winston Blake (played by Andre Braugher).

Gone will be the familiar call of “Crock-ah,” which Savalas bellowed in years past when he wanted Kevin Dobson (now of “Knots Landing”) in the room. And in the intervening years, Savalas’ real-life brother George, who played Detective Stavros, has died; but Savalas’ other brother, Gus--who on the set seems to attend to most of the actor’s needs--eventually will show up on camera as a police officer. (Behind the scenes, executive producer Jim McAdams returns.)

Though Inspector Kojak will deal with a few more Gracie Mansion types as a result of his new position, “he’s still a rebel,” Savalas says.

And, of course, there will always be New York.

“It’s home,” says Savalas, though he notes that it is a different place from the New York he grew up in. Of Greek extraction, Savalas bemoans the fact that the neighborhoods he knew as a kid are all gone. “If I was on 25th Street, where I spent a great deal of my youth, if I went to 26th Street it was like a foreign country. That’s gone. The personality of the New York I knew as a kid is long gone.”

But the people haven’t changed much, and neither have Kojak’s fans. “Especially law enforcement,” he says. “They love the character. And I can understand that. I’m from New York, Crocker was from New York, Stavros was from New York, all the guys were from the neighborhood. It had that reality to it. And also, the character played close to what the truth is with law enforcement, and I think the cops loved us for that.”

In the crack-infested New York of today, Savalas is sick of “murders and slaughters, cutting up bodies on the news and burning the bones. God, it becomes routine stuff to the kids. Routine stuff.” (Savalas and his third wife have two children under 5.)

“Kojak” won’t ignore the reality, he says. “But there’s nothing wrong with smelling the roses. Nothing wrong with a human-interest story. True, violence is there, but we won’t make it the primary source of entertainment.”

And how will New Yorkers react? Judging from yet another New Yorker who works her way into the trailer--interrupting Savalas, who is now sitting down to a Greek salad--just fine.

On her way out, she asks Kojak--or does she mean Savalas?--to run for mayor.