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August 6, 1969 : Los Angeles

Prabhupada wrote a letter to Satsvarupa Maharaja today conceiving ISKCON Press.

Satsvarupa: By the time we received this letter, we had already purchased the house. The house was a three-story Victorian mansion with gables and many rooms. I had described it to Prabhupada in one of my letters and now Prabhupada decided it would be a suitable place to set up his press. We had just moved in when I received this letter and we hadn't even had time to decide how we were going to use all the space.

Prabhupada had heard only a brief description of the house, but he had already envisioned how it should be used. Prabhupada was still printing with Dai Nippon, but he wanted his own printing press. Advaita had trained himself in press work, and Uddhava had learned how to manipulate photographs and to work with graphics. Vaikunthanatha did the bookbinding.

The beginnings of the press were in New York at this time, but Prabhupada and the devotees involved had been discussing where they could relocate it. Boston suddenly became viable when we purchased this large house. Eventually, Advaita came to Boston from New York and inspected our house, and of course, he loved it. It even had a back entrance complete with a loading dock. He didn't think the floor was a problem and said he could brace it from the basement. He not only claimed the hall, but the front room for the office and the basement for photography.



Reference: You cannot leave Boston - Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami