ISKCON New York Welcomes Prabhupada...

Swarupa Dasa: My first close encounter with ISKCON Press was when I visited the Boston ISKCON temple in December of 1969. At the time I was living as a brahmacari at the 61 2nd Avenue temple in New York City’s lower east side. Srila Prabhupada was in London at the time but his travel plan was to return to the U.S. on December 21st with his first stop being the Boston center. The day before his arrival all of us New York ISKCON devotees headed up to Boston. Some rode in our little red VW beetle rented from Mar-U-Drive on The Bowery, a few took the bus and some even hitchhiked. I got a ride up there but ended up hitchhiking back home from Boston to New York on a snowy night in late December after volunteering my seat in the VW to a godbrother. Devotees from other centers such as Buffalo, Columbus, New Vrindaban, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. were also arriving. On the day Prabhupada was due to arrive a school bus was rented to transport everyone to Boston’s Logan Airport. The wonderful reception scene there was documented in a series of photographs in which can be seen a banner saying “ISKCON New York Welcomes Prabhupada.” I’m holding one end and Rohini Kumar the other. Notice in the photo that “Prabhupada” was spelled wrong. It wasn’t that long before that when we stopped calling him Swamiji and we were still getting used to addressing him as Prabhupada.