Today, we introduce a few of the nominees who have already made New York a better place through their selfless actions and unflagging dedication.

Patrick Tully kept reciting a calming mantra of, "Follow me, you're all going to be OK" as he led several Wall Street co-workers down 32 flights of stairs during last week's blackout - all the while supporting an elderly man in excruciating pain from osteoarthritis.

"He didn't let me flip out," said money manager Deidre Collins, who burst into tears yesterday as she described how the staircase at 39 Broadway was "pitch black and felt like 150 degrees. It seemed like we went down 132 floors, not 32."

And after Tully, a hedge fund manager, got them to the street and realized a 76-year-old stockbroker with a heart condition was missing and probably trapped in an elevator, he ran back inside and helped maintenance workers find and free him.

"He didn't even think about himself" at a time, minutes into the blackout, when no one knew if it was a terrorist attack, said Collins, who nominated Tully, general partner at Endeavor Asset Management, for the Post's Leadership Liberty Medal.

But the 42-year-old Bronx-born New Jersey resident says being the father of three kids - Zach, 13, Alexandra, 10, and Juliana, 3 - "prepares you for a lot."

With a flashlight in his right hand, Tully used his left to interlock arms with 76-year-old Direct Brokerage stockbroker Paul Asnes, whose very bad osteoarthritis gave him constant pain in his ankles, knees, thighs and hips. "I can't go anymore," Asnes told him at one point. Tully said he kept him moving by "reading out the floor numbers, telling him, 'We're a third of the way,' or 'We only have 10 floors to go.' "