BY SARAH FERGUSON | Random tributes to the musical genius Prince keep cropping up all over. On Sunday afternoon, folks were getting “Delirious” in Tompkins Square Park at a pop-up dance party and bike ride organized by the group Public Space Party. People donned their purple finest to “get crazy” to their favorite Prince dance tracks that were blasted from iPods hooked up to speakers towed on two different bike trailers.
There was also a wagon-drawn shrine to the Purple One created by West Villager Albert Wilking, who by divine providence showed up in Tompkins without knowing the event was going down.
“I wanted to be Prince when I was young,” Wilking confessed. “He was so out. He was so himself. It scared me to be so out.”
Prince died last Thursday at age 57.
Most found out about the Tompkins event through Facebook.
“I came because he’s everything,” said Saritha Gateau, 28, of Brooklyn. “He’s my joy, and I’m heartbroken.”
As “Purple Rain” blared, she and about 30 others set off on an unpermitted ride down Broadway to the Prince St. subway station, where they partied with random passersby like it was “1999.” The group then set off for Sheridan Square, where they boogied to “Kiss” and “I Wanna Be Your Lover” in front of the famed Stonewall Inn. It took a little coaxing, but soon all sorts of “Beautiful Ones” were joining in.
“We’re Public Space Party, and we celebrate public space,” shouted organizer Ben Shepard, to no one in particular. Their brief “liberation” of Sheridan Square was a fitting tribute to an artist who pushed the envelope in so many ways. Shepard, who actually teaches the politics of “play” at City University, said he first drank the purple Kool-Aid in 1981 when he saw Prince open for the Rolling Stones in Dallas.
“It was his “Controversy” tour, and he had on this purple negligee,” Shepard recalled. “We were in shock. This was 12 years after Altamont, when people died at a Stones concert. Three years later, we all saw “Purple Rain” and fell in love with Prince. He helped us grow a little bit — get out of our silos.”
Similarly, Darlene Blander of Ocean Hill, Brooklyn, said she fell in love as a teen after hearing Prince’s hit single “Controversy,” with its lyrics: “Am I black or white? Am I straight or gay?”
“I have a purple room,” Blander said. “I’m all about the purple.”
On Thursday night, Cooper Union students also held an impromptu Prince dance party in the plaza south of the Foundation Building.
