In 2022, Kendall Vidal had a double hip replacement. Just two years later, he found himself dancing center stage in Herbert Von King Park.
“You know, I don't always get into the circle like that,” Vidal said. “But this particular time, I went down and just had a blast. I lost my phone. Everything was falling out of my pockets. That’s how much fun I was having. It was awesome.”
“After my double hip, I'm just out here just enjoying life, and, you know, Public Service is a big part of that,” he said.
Now in its fifth year, Public Service is a series of free, outdoor daytime parties co-founded by DJs Mickey Perez and Cesar Toribio.
The event, which is funded through public donations on a GoFundMe page, builds on the long-standing tradition of New York City block parties, happening in parks across Brooklyn, with two more taking place this summer, one on Aug. 9 in Steuben Playground on the edge of Williamsburg, and another on Sept. 13 in Maria Hernandez Park in Bushwick.
Cesar Toribio, left, and Mickey Perez.
While no two parties can ever be exactly the same, there are some things that have become nonnegotiable at Public Service. Babies will cling to their parents' shoulders, bobbing along to the music, weighed down only by their earmuffs.
Large clouds of bubbles will drift over the heads of dancers expertly clapping their hands or twisting their hips to the music, and born-and-bred New Yorkers will brush shoulders with those experiencing summer in Brooklyn for the first time.
“Public Service is an intergenerational, all-walks-of-life, expression of music in the form of a park jam,” Toribio said over Zoom.
“It's something put together by two people really inspired by, in love with, and grateful to New York,” Perez said.
The co-founders met 10 years ago at the Black Flamingo, a now-closed basement club in Williamsburg. Perez had been running Banga Banga, a weekly dance-music event from Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, at the club for two months before Toribio began working there as a manager. The two DJs became friends and, in 2021, organized a series of street parties called Baila.
The third of these events ended when the police shut it down, so Perez and Toribio decided to get the permits to move their parties to parks across Brooklyn.
Public Service has since become an essential part of the city for many.
“Public Service defines the sound of the summer in Brooklyn,” said Bec Hartke, a dancer who has attended almost every one of Perez and Toribio’s parties. “I always leave with this energy boost for the week, this feeling of, OK, I belong in this city and there are so many other people that I was able to connect with.”
The music is central to the Public Service experience. At their events, you will hear house music and merengue, songs with Yoruba roots, and dancehall selections (all played exclusively on vinyl), with the intent of sonically capturing the diversity of New York.
“Understanding what this city is, is understanding what songs and music resonates with everyone,” said Perez, who remains focused on constructing a musical roadmap for each event, starting and ending each Public Service with the same two tunes.
The first is a 1982 song by the Afro-Cuban singer Merceditas Valdés, titled “Elegua.” The song thanks Elegua, an Orisha and master of the crossroads in ancient Yoruba and Afro-Caribbean religions.
“Before you start any kind of gathering, you have to acknowledge Elegua,” Toribio said.
“By playing that song, we're putting everything that happens today in Elegua's hands, and wherever it goes, we're at peace with it,” Perez added.
The closing song is a 1973 salsa track from Héctor Lavoe and Willie Colón, “Todo Tiene Su Final.” Perez first discovered it while constructing DJ sets for livestreams he did during the pandemic in 2020. Since then, the song has fast become what Toribio calls a “Public Service classic,” commemorating the end of each event.
“We're very intentional with how we program each service. We like to take our time, taking a full journey. It's more about the music than it is about anything else, and the real, organic reaction and action that comes around that music,” Toribio said.
Alongside the work of co-founders Perez and Toribio, each event is supported by a sound system run by Karl Scholz and photographed by Mario Federico.
“I've been collecting anecdotes from all the parties, not just the photos, but anecdotes to accompany them,” Federico said over the phone, describing the moment a young woman told him after a party that Public Service had brought her to tears.
“She was telling us how everything is so awful in life outside our smaller communities. She opens up the news and she's reading all these horrible stories, and then she was like, ‘I found myself in a moment with strangers smiling and laughing and completely forgetting about all the stuff that like we've been going through.’"
Kyle Barnes, 27, moved to Brooklyn from Texas four years ago and attended his first Public Service in 2023 after a friend told him about it.
Since then, Barnes has been to over 10 of these parties.
“I don’t mean to use this term flippantly, but it is a bit utopian,” said Barnes, who found an entire new group of friends from repeatedly attending Perez and Toribio’s events. “It felt like this kind of representation of a community that I had been looking for without even realizing it.”
