Arrival Comments in Car to Temple – July 9, 1976, New York

Tamala Krsna: Do they own it or lease it?

Ramesvara: They lease. The city builds it, and they lease it from the city.

Prabhupada: What is the name of this airport?

Tamala Krsna: La Guardia.

Prabhupada: La Guardia, yes.

Tamala Krsna: There are three airports.

Prabhupada: I think these buildings are not ten years ago.

Tamala Krsna: Oh. New York has three airports.

Ramesvara: This is the oldest airport.

Tamala Krsna: Yes. Kennedy, La Guardia, and there's one just across the river, Newark. It's in New Jersey, but it's considered part of the Port Authority.

Prabhupada: I hear, Mayapur Project, you have not been sending money?

Ramesvara: Not yet.

Prabhupada: They want money. Gargamuni has written.

Tamala Krsna: Yes, they've been calling for money regularly, but we have not been able to send them any.

Ramesvara: I met with Gurukrpa Swami, Srila Prabhupada, and he has just transferred from the Japanese collections 125,000 dollars. He is writing one letter.

Prabhupada: No, give them, not more than…

Tamala Krsna: Ten thousand a month.

Prabhupada: Not all at a time. Management is not very good. So...

Tamala Krsna: Little by little.

Prabhupada: One lakh will be sufficient.

Tamala Krsna: For carrying on the work.

Prabhupada: Things are going on here nice?

Tamala Krsna: They're gradually improving. Actually, everything has just begun here; it's by no means complete. You'll see that all of the work is just in progress. It's not... It will take a while to make it very nice.

Prabhupada: Yes. Manage nicely. Krsna is giving us everything; there is no scarcity. If we simply sincerely work, Krsna will give us intelligence, everything. By His mercy everything is available. That is Krsna-He can give you anything.

[pause]

Prabhupada: That Brooklyn Bridge, I think? That iron bridge?

Tamala Krsna: Yes, there is a Brooklyn Bridge, but we're not going over it.

Prabhupada: Sometimes I was coming there and sitting down near the bridge.

Tamala Krsna: Near the water? You were sitting near the water part?

Prabhupada: Yes, that river.

Tamala Krsna: That's a famous bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge. It's the biggest expansion-type bridge.

Prabhupada: Because I was on that Bowery Street; it is not very far away. So I was coming, walking there, and sitting under the bridge. And thinking, "Whether I shall return to India?" [laughs]

Tamala Krsna: You said you were always inquiring when the boat was returning.

Prabhupada: Yes. There was one sub-railway station... Beginning with F?

Tamala Krsna: Fulton Street?

Prabhupada: Huh?

Tamala Krsna: Fulton Street.

Prabhupada: Yes, yes, yes. Sometimes I am going there. Fulton.

Tamala Krsna: That's very well known.

Ramesvara: It's in the Village.

Tamala Krsna: This bridge we're going on is called the Triborough Bridge.

Prabhupada: Oh. This is over New York?

Tamala Krsna: Yes, it goes over the East River.

Prabhupada: That Hudson Street?

Tamala Krsna: Hudson River is on the other side. This is going on the east side of the city.

Prabhupada: That subway that goes to the city office? There are so many bridges.

Tamala Krsna: So many, yes, many, many bridges. Every day about seven million people come into this island of Manhattan from the other boroughs, and they go back. From your room... Our building is very close to the Empire State Building, so from your room you have a very nice view of it.

Prabhupada: Oh. So Los Angeles everything is going nice?

Ramesvara: Everything is very nice. We just had a big saṅkirtana marathon for this Fourth of July, and they distributed up to thirty thousand Back to Godheads in just a few days.

Prabhupada: [referring to garland] Make it smaller.

Tamala Krsna: I think it's all one garland, Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: You can make smaller.

Tamala Krsna: All right.

Ramesvara: We had a good success because we sent out all the householders to the parks. During that holiday everyone goes to the parks. So the householders took their children and they set up a tent, and one of them stayed there babysitting, and all the others went out distributing your books. So in that way they went out on traveling saṅkirtana.

Prabhupada: What is the name of that boy? He sold one Caitanya-caritamrta to a chemist?

Ramesvara: Praghosa?

Hari-sauri: No, not Praghosa. He's originally from New York, big, heavy, thick-set boy. Prominent features. Begins with J.

Prabhupada: One chemist of Toronto, he sold one book, Caitanya-caritamrta, then he talked with me. He's pleased.

Ramesvara: The chemist?

Hari-sauri: Yes. He sold him a Caitanya-caritamrta and then he brought him over and Prabhupada spoke to him.

Prabhupada: New York climate is very nice?

Tamala Krsna: Very nice. Like Calcutta.

Hari-sauri: On July the Fourth Prabhupada went and drove into Washington to see the fireworks.

Tamala Krsna: Really?

Hari-sauri: In the evening. We had traveling kirtana all around the city.

Tamala Krsna: I think this is enough, Prabhupada? I'll tie it together now.

Prabhupada: No, no.

Hari-sauri: We didn't see much of the firework display, but he liked the kirtana. The reaction was just amazing. People were dancing and chanting and waving when we went past. Prabhupada was in ecstasy.

Prabhupada: Very nice.

Tamala Krsna: New York climate is very nice. Sometimes now it rains a little bit, then shining. So just like Bengal.

Ramesvara: I observed that these devotees at New York, they've practically given up sleeping this past week to prepare everything for your arrival.

Prabhupada: [laughs] They are so kind to me.

Tamala Krsna: Yes, they worked very hard.

Ramesvara: It reminded me that time when the Press devotees stayed up all the time to get those Caitanya-caritamrta volumes. The same spirit. They just stopped eating and sleeping.

Prabhupada: That is love. These things can be done only out of love.

Ramesvara: There were some hired carpenters and painters, and their last day of working was, I think, Wednesday. So yesterday and this morning they came in voluntarily. They stayed up the whole night without sleep, and they continued working.

Tamala Krsna: They worked now from eight o'clock yesterday, and they just finished this morning. Straight through the night.

Prabhupada: They are professional?

Ramesvara: Professional, but by the association of the devotees...

Prabhupada: They become...

Tamala Krsna: One of them now says that he wants to rent a room for the whole year in our building.

Ramesvara: He loves the prasadam.

Tamala Krsna: He says he likes the prasadam.

Prabhupada: Why don't you stay here? No rent; you stay here. You are devotee, you stay here.

Tamala Krsna: He's a celibate right now. He's not married, bachelor.

Prabhupada: Take prasadam, stay here.

Tamala Krsna: That's what he wants, and let him give part of his income.

Prabhupada: Oh, yes.

Tamala Krsna: Because of this rain the atmosphere is actually very clean now. You notice that. It's not very much smog, compared to usual. This is the FDR Drive.

Prabhupada: These are cooperative buildings?

Tamala Krsna: Yes, Prabhupada. These are lower middle class cooperative buildings. This is the East Side.

Prabhupada: I selected one cooperative apartment, they wanted five thousand dollars. [laughs] I had no money. Very nice apartment, near city office.

Tamala Krsna: Downtown. This is First Avenue here, at about ll6th Street, where we are now.

Prabhupada: Our building is on the Fifty-fourth?

Tamala Krsna: Fifty-fifth Street. Just near Broadway, one block from Broadway.

Prabhupada: Broadway is important place.

Tamala Krsna: Very important. Our building is right in the midst of the theater, restaurant and entertainment section of the city.

Prabhupada: In New York I feel little homely, because first I came here. I was loitering on the street here and there. From 1965 September to '67 July, continually I stayed in New York.

Tamala Krsna: Two years.

Ramesvara: Tamala Krsna Maharaja gave one class this morning. So he was explaining that we cannot understand the good fortune of this city that you have come here. We cannot begin to estimate how fortunate this city is.

Prabhupada: Yes, I, when I decided I shall go to foreign countries, I never thought of going to London; I thought of coming here. Generally they go to London, but I thought, "No, I shall go to New York."

Tamala Krsna: Very progressive.

Prabhupada: [laughs] I do not know. It is Krsna's dictation. I could have gone. London was nearer. But I thought, "No, I shall go to New York." Sometimes, I think, I was coming this part. Aimlessly... I think the United Nation building is somewhere here?

Tamala Krsna: No, it's a little further down. It's on this avenue, it's on Forty-fourth Street, and we are on Ninety-sixth Street. We are a little bit uptown.

Prabhupada: And Ninety... Yes. That Indian Consulate office is Sixty-fourth.

Tamala Krsna: Sixty-fourth Street, and just off Central Park.

Prabhupada: I was coming there sometimes, talking with the officers. One Mr. Malhotra was there, he was friendly, very friendly. He arranged some meeting in Consulate office. They had some organization, Tagore Organization. Second Avenue we'll come?

Tamala Krsna: Yes, Srila Prabhupada. This is First Avenue, then comes Second.

Prabhupada: Yes, sometimes walking on the Second Avenue.

Tamala Krsna: We're going to go up to Central Park and then go along the Park.

Prabhupada: This is Ninety-sixth?

Tamala Krsna: This is Ninety-sixth Street.

Prabhupada: There was fire in this building?

Tamala Krsna: There are many fires in this city, I notice.

Prabhupada: It is due to the warm.

Tamala Krsna: Yes, due to the warm, and also the buildings, some of them are old, and they are not built properly.

Prabhupada: Not taken care of.

Tamala Krsna: No. Our building is also an old building. It's seventy years old. But it's made of solid stone and concrete, brick.

Prabhupada: Then it will never get old.

Tamala Krsna: No, it's extremely...

Prabhupada: You have to simply change the plastering.

Tamala Krsna: Yes, painting, plastering.

Prabhupada: Then it will continue new for hundreds of years.

Tamala Krsna: It's built like that. It's all steel reinforced everywhere.

Prabhupada: Ah, then it is very nice.

Tamala Krsna: It's rated..., it has the top fire rating in the city.

Prabhupada: After three years it will require little repairing, then it will keep new always.

Tamala Krsna: Right now we're in the process of simply repainting it, giving it a fresh coat of paint to make it new, because they had not painted it for about ten years, former owners.

Prabhupada: It should be painted every three years, then it will be all right.

Tamala Krsna: Okay.

Ramesvara: On the outside as well.

Prabhupada: Yes, everywhere. Then the building will keep very fresh always.

Tamala Krsna: Yes.

Prabhupada: This is Second Avenue?

Tamala Krsna: This is I think Third Avenue. Next comes Lexington Avenue.

Prabhupada: This is black area?

Tamala Krsna: Puerto Rican and black. This city has as many people Puerto Ricans as Puerto Rico does. So many Puerto Rican people come here, because it's part of..., it's a possession of the United States. So the East Side is Puerto Ricans and the West Side...

Prabhupada: Generally they are worker class.

Tamala Krsna: Oh, yes. Workers, sudras. This is Park Avenue.

Prabhupada: Oh.

Hari-sauri: Some of the billboard signs are even Portuguese also.

Tamala Krsna: Spanish.

Prabhupada: They speak Spanish?

Ramesvara: Puerto Ricans speak Spanish.

Prabhupada: Why don't you sell Spanish books to them?

Tamala Krsna: We do. We distribute here Spanish books from New York.

Ramesvara: Today Hrdayananda Maharaja is sending to the printer the last volume of the First Canto in Spanish, another volume of the Srimad-Bhagavatam in Spanish. And before you leave New York he will give you...

Tamala Krsna: I'll give him...

Ramesvara: ...a new book in Spanish, the Krsna book, Volume One.

Prabhupada: Oh.

Ramesvara: That is coming in a few days.

Prabhupada: You have seen Chinese Bhagavad-gita?

Tamala Krsna: Yes, we have seen that.

Prabhupada: You have got it?

Hari-sauri: Yes, in the back.

Tamala Krsna: I have it also. I sent a copy to Peking.

Prabhupada: He has done very nice. First six chapters. So in three books it will be finished.

Hari-sauri: The next six chapters are coming out soon.

Prabhupada: That boy is doing very nice. Yasomati?

Tamala Krsna: Suta.

Prabhupada: Suta, yes, very nice.

Tamala Krsna: Madison Avenue. Here is Fifth Avenue.

Prabhupada: Yes, Central Park. I was coming to Central Park from the other side, Seventy-second Street.

Tamala Krsna: Our temple is four blocks from Central Park. Just walking distance. The mothers and children go there.

Prabhupada: Central Park? Very nice. So you have advantage of the park.

Tamala Krsna: Oh, yes. And on Sundays we put on saṅkirtana in the park, and then the people are invited to come to the temple for the feast. Now, because of the good weather, many people leave the city on the weekend, so the numbers of people who are coming on the Love Feast days is not as much as before the summer and after the summer. Now they like to go to the beaches and resort areas, where it's cool and there's water.

Prabhupada: The zoo [pronounces "joo"] is here also here?

Tamala Krsna: Jewish people?

Prabhupada: No, zoo, zoology.

Tamala Krsna: Zoo, zoology. Yes, Central Park Zoo is on about Sixty-fourth Street, Sixty-fifth Street, just off of the east.

Prabhupada: All big, big buildings.

Tamala Krsna: That's New York. The population now of the greater New York area is eighteen million.

Prabhupada: Eighteen million?

Tamala Krsna: Yes.

Prabhupada: It was ten million.

Tamala Krsna: Yes, it has very much increased now. That includes the outlying...

Prabhupada: How it is increased?

Tamala Krsna: Well, it includes the outlying suburbs, which have become very developed.

Ramesvara: Long Island. It includes Long Island.

Tamala Krsna: Just as many people are living here now, and many, many more people are living on the outskirts.

Ramesvara: And Queens.

Tamala Krsna: Queens and Brooklyn, much more people are living there than before. Queens and Long Island especially.

Prabhupada: So Bali-mardana is doing all right?

Tamala Krsna: Yes, he and I stay together. We get up at two-thirty in the morning, chant sixteen rounds before arati, saying Gayatri strictly on time, eating very little, and he reads a great deal of the day, two or three hours he reads, and he's also preaching, giving classes.

Prabhupada: His wife?

Tamala Krsna: She's engaged in taking care of the Life Members, Indian Life Members who come, and the guest rooms.

Prabhupada: Oh, that's nice. She is expert. [chuckles] She's very expert. She can do nicely. And during winter here it will be so cold you cannot stand even.

Tamala Krsna: Actually, after I left Hawaii, I went to see you in Hawaii, all of the work that we did in this building began from when I returned here. So it's been a great push for the last month or month and a half, I think. They did not do much improvement on the temple the first five or six months they were here. They were just adjusting, I guess.

Prabhupada: Not proper leader. What is this building?

Tamala Krsna: This is the, ah...

Ramesvara: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Tamala Krsna: Metropolitan Museum of Art. Very famous art museum. [break]

Prabhupada: ...saw fireworks in Washington.

Tamala Krsna: There's the Empire State Building, Prabhupada, straight ahead.

Prabhupada: Oh, yes.

Ramesvara: I think one day our art paintings will also be in these museums, because our artists are becoming as expert as anyone.

Prabhupada: Must be.

Ramesvara: Already people are coming and offering minimum one thousand dollars to buy a painting.

Prabhupada: Where in…?

Ramesvara: In Los Angeles, I have sold some paintings for a thousand dollars each.

Prabhupada: Original paintings.

Ramesvara: Originals and some copies [laughter] also.

Prabhupada: Copy, how do you make copy?

Ramesvara: We have some artists practicing. So he makes a copy of the original, and I sell it for five hundred dollars. Half the price of the original.

Tamala Krsna: Good business.

Ramesvara: But that will increase. You can get ten thousand, twenty thousand dollars for one painting in the future, because they are paying that much now for inferior work.

Prabhupada: Who is painting nice? Murali?

Ramesvara: Muralidhara, Jadurani, Pariksit.

Tamala Krsna: Pariksit is wonderful.

Prabhupada: Pariksit, yes.

Tamala Krsna: Yes. He's expert. We have one boy in the temple here who has been doing murals on the walls in the temple room, and he's done it very quickly with a technique called airbrush. Instead of using a brush, you use a spray gun, and you spray the paint on. It's a modern technique. It's especially good in murals and things.

Prabhupada: First of all they draw in lines?

Tamala Krsna: Yes. And then they spray on the paint. He finishes a painting in two or three days, big murals. [laughs] He's expert. He's known as the human camera. He can copy any picture onto a wall. His name is Visnu dasa.

Prabhupada: Expert. So why does he not go to Mayapur project? [laughter]

Tamala Krsna: Yes, he's meant to go, after he finishes the temple. You already told him to go last time.

Ramesvara: We knew you would say that, Srila Prabhupada.

Tamala Krsna: We were talking this morning how as soon as you see his work, you'll say he should go to Mayapur. He paints very quickly. We could actually send him with that spray gun.

Prabhupada: Electric spray?

Tamala Krsna: Yes. I don't know if they use electricity, or do you use gas? The thing is that he can paint directly, just as fast.

Ramesvara: Yes, I had him in L.A. painting with a brush. [indistinct background conversation about painting]

Prabhupada: What is this building?

Tamala Krsna: I don't recognize it. Oh, the Frick Collection, it's an art museum. This whole street is full of art museums.

Prabhupada: Oh.

Tamala Krsna: There's one gentleman named Frick.

Ramesvara: This taxi driver is saying Hare Krsna.

Prabhupada: Our Jayananda was driving taxi and chanting Hare Krsna, and one day [laughter] he brought to me five thousand dollars.

Ramesvara: And you used it to print Teachings of Lord Caitanya.

Prabhupada: Huh?

Ramesvara: Was that the time?

Prabhupada: I think, yes.

Tamala Krsna: You kept it then.

Prabhupada: I kept it. It was given for publishing Bhagavad-gita, but I think Macmillan took it. So I spent it for...

Tamala Krsna: Then you put him in charge to sell all the Teachings of Lord Caitanya, I remember.

[Prabhupada laughs]

Jayananda: Didn't sell too many books, though.

Tamala Krsna: I thought he was the best, most appropriate person to drive you.

Prabhupada: He was chanting and driving. Very good boy.

Tamala Krsna: Cyavana has been here also.

Prabhupada: Just train him. He is good boy. He has fallen down, just take care of him.

Tamala Krsna: Yes, actually the work here needs, you'll see, this building, it actually requires four or five big leaders.

Prabhupada: One may fall down, but you have to take care.

Tamala Krsna: He's much better now.

Prabhupada: Yes, he'll do. He's good worker, if you can train him, he's a good worker. He can do very nice. He has fallen in maya, just take care of him. What can be done? He's good worker, very good worker. He can do intelligent service.

Tamala Krsna: Very intelligent, very high class, nice devotee.

Prabhupada: He knows accounting. There was no guide, he became alone...

Tamala Krsna: That's exactly what he said.

Prabhupada: ...and became spoiled.

Tamala Krsna: He said there was just too much for himself alone.

Prabhupada: Yes, that is the difficulty. As soon as there is lack of good association, one falls a victim. What about that boy, Rsi Kumara?

Tamala Krsna: Oh, he's doing great. He's taken up joint charge of the restaurant.

Prabhupada: He's also very good boy.

Tamala Krsna: All day long he cooks, and after he cooks, then the people take the prasadam in the restaurant, he goes out and preaches to them.

Prabhupada: He's an able worker.

Tamala Krsna: Then he goes out and he leads the hari-nama party on the street. He's very enthusiastic to make this restaurant very successful.

Prabhupada: But keep watch on him.

Tamala Krsna: For the women.

Prabhupada: Yes. [laughs]

Tamala Krsna: He gets deluded. Well, you know what we've done with all of these people, Prabhupada, we've...

Prabhupada: If they are disturbed, let them marry.

Tamala Krsna: He doesn't want. He says he knows it's a waste of time, marriage. What we have done with Rsi Kumara and Bali-mardana is that we are living with them. Like Rsi Kumara lives with Adi-kesava Swami.

Prabhupada: Somebody must be with him. Then it is all right. Not alone.

Tamala Krsna: We've put them with the senior...

Prabhupada: Either Cyavana or him, some experienced devotee must be with him. Then they...

Tamala Krsna: Do nicely.

Prabhupada: And I think Rsi Kumara is a good cook also.

Tamala Krsna: My personal opinion is he's the best cook that I've so far seen.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Tamala Krsna: Since he has come here, the prasadam in the restaurant has at least doubled in the quality.

Prabhupada: Accha. [laughs]

Tamala Krsna: Completely different prasadam. He's learned the Gujarati style. Kachori, samosa, every kind of special prep. When we stayed in Kailash Shiksharya's house when we were first in Bombay, the things that those cooks were cooking, he knows how to cook. Very high class Marwari and Gujarati cooking.

Prabhupada: He's very intelligent.

Tamala Krsna: And Manibandha, he's another one. He's cooking with Rsi Kumara.

Prabhupada: He's also very intelligent boy, but sometimes spoiled.

Tamala Krsna: We have a lot of them here.

Prabhupada: Anyway, we have to take care of so many souls. [taxi-driver yells] What does he say?

Tamala Krsna: He said you have a nice car. That's good they like the car.

Prabhupada: [laughs] Ask "Why him don't you come here?" [laughter] "Why you are driving taxi? Come here."

Tamala Krsna: It's amazing how everybody is looking at us.

Prabhupada: Now, formerly it was thirty-five, now it is sixty-five?

Tamala Krsna: Yes, Prabhupada. Everything has doubled in price. This car is very ordinary, but it is because you are in it, Prabhupada, that they are looking. Ordinarily it is not such a special car.

Prabhupada: What is the make of it?

Hari-sauri: LTD. What is it?

Tamala Krsna: It's the same, more or less the same car that you had when you were driving in Los Angeles.

Hari-sauri: The same as what you had in Melbourne also.

Tamala Krsna: It's a Ford.

Prabhupada: Los Angeles, this was Mercedes.

Tamala Krsna: No, Mercury. Right? Mercury?

Prabhupada: No, this is nice car.

Ramesvara: It's their version of Cadillac, Mercury's version of Cadillac. They cannot understand. Because we say we are not after material opulence for ourselves, they cannot understand that we drive in these cars.

Prabhupada: They think that we unnecessarily criticize. But we require everything. But just like a man, when he's alive his decoration, his nice dress, everything is very good. But if he's dead, then it is useless. Similarly, without spiritual consciousness we are dead, because the body is dead. Because the spirit soul is there, therefore it is moving. The important point is the spirit soul. So if you are simply taking care of the body very nicely, that means you are decorating the dead body. What is the value of it? It is clear? The body is important because the soul is there. So long the life is there, if you decorate the body everyone will appreciate. But if you decorate the dead body, people will say, "What a fool he is!" Apranasyaiva dehasya mandanam loka-ranjanam [Hari-bhakti-sudhodaya 3.11].

That is simply a popular applause, "Ah, the dead body is decorated." But what is the value of it? Similarly, without spiritual knowledge, this dead civilization simply on the bodily concept of life, it is ludicrous. That we have to condemn. Take Krsna consciousness, then everything is... Just like one, if there is zero, then it is ten. Another zero, hundred. But without one, simply zero, it is only useless.

Tamala Krsna: That one is Krsna.

Ramesvara: And Krsna's representative.

Tamala Krsna: Jaya.

Prabhupada: One, if there is one, then zero has value. If there is no one, then simply increasing zeroes, what do we get for that? That is the position. There is no spiritual understanding; they are simply after material advancement. Therefore despite all advancement materially, they are not happy. You cannot be. Now they are trying to bring life by material combination. It is all impossible, childish. Our scientists, they have come? No.

Hari-sauri: Yes. Sadaputa. Yes, they are all here, aren't they?

Tamala Krsna: Svarupa Damodara here?

Hari-sauri: Yes.

Tamala Krsna: Ah.

Prabhupada: Madhava and Svarupa.

Hari-sauri: Three of them, Madhava, Svarupa and Sadaputa also.

Ramesvara: Ever since we published that article that they wrote in Back to Godhead, many people have been impressed that "Oh, Ph.D's, they are accepting this movement." Many Indian guests in Los Angeles, they all comment that they have read this article, and now they are taking our movement ser...

Prabhupada: Now I have collected one Indian, four items he is Ph.D. He is Ph.D. in chemistry, Ph.D. in engineering...

Hari-sauri: Dr. Sharma?

Prabhupada: Yes. And Ph.D. in pathology. Four. And he's lawyer also.

Tamala Krsna: What is he going to do?

Prabhupada: He's going to help our, this... [break]

Tamala Krsna: These are bookstalls. Look at that. Barnes and Noble, they are putting up bookstalls here.

Ramesvara: Another Ph.D. from India has joined our movement in Denver. He's just moved into the temple. He has a Ph.D. in psychology.

Prabhupada: Yes. There are horse carriages here?

Tamala Krsna: Just there.

Prabhupada: Yes. This is Fifty-seventh?

Tamala Krsna: Fifty-ninth. You don't want to turn here, huh, Jayananda? Do you? Go up Fifty-ninth, it would be nicer. This is where the parade begins. From here down, straight. All the way down Fifth Avenue.

Prabhupada: The Ratha-yatra.

Tamala Krsna: Yes. From here all the way down, we go all the way down to the park. You know that park? Washington Square Park. All the way down, three rathas. It's the biggest avenue.

Prabhupada: Is there any hour limit?

Tamala Krsna: No. Two or three hours it will take. You've got to get on the right side, Jayananda.

Prabhupada: It appears more congested than before.

Tamala Krsna: Yes, business is increasing.

Prabhupada: Population are increased.

Tamala Krsna: They had a festival to celebrate the Fourth of July in the Battery, down at Battery Park. Four million people attended. We sold prasadam there. Over one thousand dollars of prasadam [laughs] was sold from our prasadam cart.

Prabhupada: They liked?

Tamala Krsna: Oh, yes. They were selling kachoris, sandwiches.

Prabhupada: This Doubleday Company, they take our books?

Tamala Krsna: Ah...

Ramesvara: I don't know.

Tamala Krsna: I'm not sure.

Ramesvara: I don't know. Generally the bookstores, they don't take our books because our distributors are distributing on the street in front of the bookstore; they say it is competition. But the college bookstores, they all take our books. We just got a report from Satsvarupa Maharaja that this past month of June in America they sold seventy-five standing orders. And that is remarkable, because all the schools are closed in June, and still they sold them books. They closed for the summer, and still they are ordering your books.

Prabhupada: In this street I think there is one library office...

Tamala Krsna: Yes, it's Fifty..., it's either Fifty-fifth or Fifty-third, and it's called..., it's one of main sub-branches. Yes, it's a very well known one.

Prabhupada: "Free rent"?

Tamala Krsna: "Free rent. Rent a safe deposit box for one year and we'll give you an extra six months free." But first you have to pay for one year. Chemical Bank. Huge buildings now everywhere.

Prabhupada: This is Rockefeller?

Tamala Krsna: No, Prabhupada. Now everything looks like the Rockefeller Plaza. All of the buildings are built in that same style. Very opulent. Now every day I look out the window of our building and I think when it will come that we will have one of these buildings. It won't be long. You can see how big these are, Prabhupada. This is Sixth Avenue.

Prabhupada: So we are between Sixth Avenue and...?

Tamala Krsna: No, we're between Eighth Avenue and Ninth. Actually, our building can be seen from here. Hare Krsna is on the outside of it.

Hari-sauri: I can see it, just on the left.

Ramesvara: Straight ahead.

Tamala Krsna: It's on the left straight ahead. It's a brown building on the left side.

Hari-sauri: There's a tree on the top.

Tamala Krsna: It has gold letters going down the side of it saying Hare Krsna.

Hari-sauri: It's the brownish one with the white..., little white cabin-type thing on the top of it.

Tamala Krsna: We're very lucky. We rented a garage one block away which can house four buses and twenty vans. Only one block away from it. It's very unusual. Otherwise...

Prabhupada: You have taken the whole garage?

Tamala Krsna: Yes, otherwise it's not possible to get parking space in New York. See the "Hare Krsna" now, Prabhupada, on the side of the building?

Prabhupada: Yes, yes.

Tamala Krsna: Jayananda, maybe you should park on the right side. We can walk across the street rather than getting out...

Ramesvara: Yes, good idea.

Tamala Krsna: Pull over if you can on the right side, then Prabhupada can see the building from across the street. [break] Yes, at least for the next five or ten years.

Prabhupada: [laughs] Then you'll have to change again.

Tamala Krsna: Then we want the Empire State Building. [laughter] We have a nice banner which flies in front of the building also. I think you should park on the right side, Jayananda, unless...

[indistinct discussion on where to park]

All right, park on the left. See the banner?

Prabhupada: Yes. [end]