Last night after Spike Lee’s Prince block party I headed down to the Lower East Side to see if I could find some people celebrating Prince.

My friends Ky and Jeremy were DJing Jarome’s and spinning Prince all night so I stopped in there first. Apparently I got there too early because it was a bit slow. I heard it got crazy a few hours later.

I decided to just walk around lower Manhattan. I heard their was a Prince tribute at the Prince Street Subway station so I figured if I just started walking that way I might run into something. I figure I would just walk down Prince Street as far as I could and hopefully find something to photograph.

I saw some mylar balloons hanging on a traffic light and when I looked carefully I realized they spelled Prince. They were all jumbled together so I didn’t even take out my camera. I just took a photo for my Snapchat. But as I walked down the street I came to another street light covered in balloons but this time it was a work in process.

I pulled out my camera and started shooting the small group of people trying to throw these weighted balloons up onto the street light. It took some doing and as they continued a slightly bigger crowd gathered. Someone had a boom box and started blasting Prince. I started talking to the artists who were creating this helium memorial and they told me they were headed to the New Museum next. They handed me an I balloon and we headed to the next stop.

When we got to the New Museum they spelled out Prince in front of the museum in balloons and then spread glitter everywhere. More people gathered as as they worked. They started spraying Prince stencils everywhere with chalk paint. By the time they were finished the New Museum had become a dance party.

I took a group photo and then everyone split up and I continued on to the Prince Street Subway where I found a couple tributes to Prince. By that time it was 2 or 3 am and I figured it was time to call it a night.

It’s a tragedy that Prince died but it was a really inspiring night and to see so many people come together is kinda wonderful. So instead of mourning Prince let’s all party like it’s 1999.

Click here to see the Prince tributes on Prince Street.

Ps. These photos are mildly NSFW cause someone pulled out their dick in the background of the group portraits because of course they did.

 

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