Yesterday, despite gloomy skies and a lingering bout of exhaustion, my gal and I made the trek from Queens to Prospect Park to celebrate with a huge chunk of Brooklyn what would have been the 51st birthday of the late, great Michael Jackson. The birthday bash / tribute was organized by Spike Lee and featured DJ Spinna (a living legend in his own right) playing five hours of MJ tunes for the masses.

And a lot of masses it was. I don’t know what the numbers ended up being, but a shitload of people turned out. Click the image below to get a panoramic view of some of the crowd that turned out:

I got there dumb late (as usual), but was still able to catch the vibe and enjoy the party. Surprisingly, there were only a handful of MJ impersonators in the crowd, but this littled dude was my favorite with the ill MJ dance steps that had the crowd in an uproar:

I was too far back to sort out everybody on stage, but I know Tracy Morgan was def in the spot and Ed Lover was the master of ceremonies (no word on whether the Ed Lover Dance also made an appearance). Of course, Sir Spike took the mic a few times as well:

They even had a cake:

It was a festive mood all around, and the crowd was def there to get down. Here’s the crowd following Ed and Spinna‘s lead getting something started:

Folks brought their boogie foots and did it up right, getting down to Michael’s “Get On the Floor”:

They kept it up right into Spinna‘s sweet little “Beat It” blend:

It was a great time all around. Brooklyn showed up strong — another reminder why I love this damn city so much.