NEW YORK – Tens of thousands of exuberant fans turned the wake for Queen of Salsa Celia Cruz on Monday into a celebration of her music and ebullient spirit.

A sea of people sang and danced and chanted on upper East Side streets as they waited to bid goodbye to Cruz, who was decked out in a white sequined dress and frosted blond wig. A funeral Mass will be offered Tuesday at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

“This is how she wanted it,” said Minerva Sanchez, 42, of Brooklyn. “She didn’t want anyone crying for her. She lived life to the fullest.”

Strains of Cruz’s favorite mambo and salsa tunes wafted through the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel as an overflow crowd estimated at 75,000 filed past the singer’s body.

As dusk fell, hundreds of joyous fans formed a conga line around a fountain in front of the nearby Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Smiling fans beat maracas and tambourines and waved Cuban flags as Lorena Garces led the crowd in an impromptu rendition of Cruz’s song “Yo Vivere,” or “I Will Live.”

“I want to be with the people dancing to her music,” Garces said. “She is Cuba.”

Cruz’s husband of 41 years, Pedro Knight, peered out a funeral home window at the crowd stretched down the block – and fans promptly started chanting his name.

The huge throngs started gathering before dawn to honor the memory of Cruz, who died last week of cancer at 77.

They waited in the muggy heat, occasionally breaking into her hit songs or chanting “Celia! Celia!” and “azucar,” Spanish for “sugar” – her trademark expression.

Some clutched tattered covers of Cruz’s Spanish-language records. Others waved Cuban flags.

One woman held a bag of sugar emblazoned with Cruz’s famous smiling face.

First on line was Diane Estevez, who was a star-struck teenager three decades ago when she sneaked backstage to meet Cruz at a concert at Madison Square Garden.

“I want to be like you, a singer,” Estevez, now 47, told Cruz.

“If you put your heart in it,” Cruz replied, “you can do it.”

Rafael Tiris hobbled in on a cane and waved a final farewell to the down-to-earth star whom he once met on an uptown street.

“Adios, mi amor,” murmured Tiris, 87, a retired hotel worker from East Harlem. “Goodbye, my love.”

Isabel Garuiso carried two poems she had written to remember Cruz on the day she died. She recalled hearing Cruz’s music as a child in Cuba, then a long official silence when the singer fled the island in 1960 after Fidel Castro seized power.

“Celia and her music never left us,” said Garuiso, 48, of Union City, N.J.

Prepared with a folding chair and a box of crackers, Lourdes De La Rosa got to the funeral home around 10:30 p.m. Sunday and settled in.

She waited more than 12 hours to get inside but said it was worth every second. “I’m honoring her for all the love she’s given us,” said De La Rosa, 41, of New Windsor in Orange County.

“There’s a human side to her that other singers don’t show.”

A who’s who of Latin music stars – including Marc Anthony, Jon Secada and Paquito D’Rivera – paid respects, as did actress Cicely Tyson.

Just before 11 a.m., a Latina cop emerged from the funeral home to say the people waiting would soon be allowed inside.

When someone asked her how Cruz looked, the cop smiled and kissed the tips of her fingers. “Se ve preciosa,” she said. “She looks beautiful.”

Mourners waited an average of three hours for the chance to spend less than a minute inside the chapel. They stared raptly at Cruz’s body, which lay in a golden coffin clutching a platinum crucifix.

She was surrounded by a flood of flowers – snapdragons, orchids and white roses – and flanked by photos.

“I know she’s in heaven,” said Ruth Sanchez, Cruz’s hairdresser. “She looks beautiful. I know she’s very happy.”

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(c) 2003, New York Daily News.

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PHOTOS (from KRT Photo Service, 202-383-6099): Celia+Cruz

AP-NY-07-21-03 2258EDT