There were, it seemed, a lot of them. By the escalator, a dapper gentleman with oversize sunglasses and a crescent moon mustache introduced himself as Percy. A pin on his jacket identified him as an employee of Related, the real estate firm behind Hudson Yards. “Mr. Billy Porter, you looked marvelous during that gala, let me tell you, and welcome to Hudson Yards,” he said.

The gala he was referring to was the Met Gala, for which Mr. Porter, 49, had arrived dressed in a 24-karat gold headpiece and borne aloft by six shirtless men in gold pants. As with his Academy Awards appearance in February, for which he wore a modest Christian Siriano tuxedo dress, his Met Gala moment had gone viral.

“I’ve been set free in a way I never knew I needed to be,” Mr. Porter said, as he paid for an iced coffee from Blue Bottle. “Who knew that would happen through fashion?” He flung his arm in the direction of a giant Dior ad featuring Jennifer Lawrence. “I need to be sitting on a bench for Dior,” he said. “High end.” He accentuated the words “High end” like verbal jabs.

Sweeping on toward the escalator, he added, “If she can do it, so can I.”

As he made his way through the glassy mall toward Forty Five Ten, there were more interludes — for hugs, for photos and for expressions of gratitude from people who felt acknowledged by his performance as the M.C. Pray Tell in the FX series “Pose,” which is set in the 1980s ball scene in New York City.